iiKMi  II  iiii  II  ■■  iiii  iMiiiniKMimi  wiiwnnniiiiim  iniiniiiiiiiiiinnniiiiiii  iiiinrrmTiiiiinrniii  n  unnrirrrnniuinriif  i    i  n  m mnm-iTi- m  n  i 

Tiai— ■■!■■■  »■■!  ii  iiiiiwiiiiiiiiaiw  iwii  II  II  !■■  II'  iiMBTiir  iimh^i  i  Miiimitium'— W— ^li'ii  it 


IRELAND'S 
FIGHT  FOR  FREEDOM 


GEORGE  CREEL 


IRELAND'S  FIGHT  FOR  FREEDOM 


EDMUND    DE    VALERA 

First  President  of  the  Irish  Republic  as  declared  by  Sinn  Fein 


IRELAND'S 
FIGHT  FOR  FREEDOM 

Setting  Forth  the  High  Lights 
of  Irish  History 


BY 

GEORGE   CREEL 

Author  ef 

"WILSOM   AJ<D  THK  ISSUES "  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


Harper    &.    Brothers    Publishers 
New  York   and   London 


Ikbland's  Fight  for  Feebdom 

Copyright,  1919,  by  Harper  &  brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  July,  igig 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBR/inr  ,   / 


CHESTNUT  HIU,  MA    02167 


To  My  Wife 
BLANCHE  BATES  CREEL 

WJio  has  long  hegged  me  to  give 

up  controversy  in  favor  of 

*'nice,  unargumentative  things  like  books" 

this  volume  is  lovingly  dedicated* 


CONTENTS 


CHA.P.  PAGE 

Foreword vi 

I.  The  Story  of  ''Home  Rule" 1 

II.  Broken  Pledges  or  ''German  Plots"       ...  27 

III.  Five  Centuries  of  Irish  War 63 

IV.  Two  Centuries  op  Irish    Rebellion    ....  84 

V.  The  ''Ulster  Problem" 114 

VI.  The  Case  op  Canada 148 

VII.  Can  Ireland  Stand  Alone? 175 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Edmund  DE  ValeRA Frontispiece 

John  Dillon  and  John  Redmond  Returning 

FROM  THE  Buckingham  Palace  Conference  Pacing  p.    24 

Padraic  Pearsb "  34 

Liberty  Hall "  52 

O'Sullivan "  68 

Patrick  Sarsfield *'  80 

James  Connolly **  106 

Sir  Edward  Carson  Reviewing  the  Ulster 
Rebels.  At  His  Side  Stand  General 
Richardson  and  Col.  Hackett  Pain,  His 
English  Drillmasters "       116 

Map  op  Ireland  Showing  Present  Political 

Boundaries ,        **      120 


FOREWORD 

The  world  is  asked  to  consider  Ireland 
merely  as  ^^ England's  domestic  problem/^ 
Certain  circumstances,  unyielding  as  iron, 
preclude  the  acceptance  of  any  such  view. 
Not  even  by  the  utmost  stretch  of  amiable 
intent  can  a  question  that  strikes  at  the  very 
heart  of  international  agreement  be  set  down 
and  written  off  as  '^domestic/'  That  magic 
formula,  ^^self-determination,'^  has  marched 
armies  and  tumbled  empires  these  last  few 
years,  playing  too  large  a  part  in  world-con- 
sciousness to  be  limited  by  any  arbitrary 
discrimination  in  the  hour  of  victory  and 
adjustment.  Even  as  Poles,  Czechs,  Jugo- 
slavs, Ukrainians,  Finns,  and  scores  of  other 
submerged  nationalities  are  struggling  to  the 
upper  air  of  independence,  so  does  Ireland 
appeal  to  the  solemn  covenant  of  the  Allies 
with  its  championship  of  the  '^rights  of  small 
peoples''  and  its  sonorous  assent  to  ^Hhe 
reign  of  law,  based  upon  the  consent  of  the 

governed." 

xi 


FOREWORD 

As  never  before  the  Irish  are  united. 
With  the  exception  of  protesting  majorities 
in  four  Ulster  counties,  Ireland  voted  as  a 
unit  in  1918  for  a  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment. The  seventy-three  representatives 
elected  by  the  Sinn  Fein  refused  to  take  their 
seats  at  Westminster  and  have  assembled 
as  an  Irish  Parhament,  sitting  in  Dublin. 
The  thousands  of  British  soldiers  in  Ireland 
virtually  constitute  an  army  of  occupation. 
In  America  the  race  has  put  aside  the  fac- 
tional bitterness  of  the  past  and  stands  solidly 
and  squarely  in  support  of  Ireland's  demand 
for  justice. 

It  is  this  that  gives  the  Irish  question  an 
American  aspect.  In  the  United  States 
there  are  over  15,000,000  people  of  Irish 
birth  or  descent,  woven  into  the  warp  and 
woof  of  our  national  hfe  by  common  aspira- 
tions and  devotions.  They  stand  implacably 
to-day  between  this  country  and  England, 
crying  out  against  any  aUiance,  agreement, 
or  even  amity  until  the  case  of  Ireland  has 
been  fairly  considered  and  justly  settled. 

Such  a  mass,  instinct  with  intelligent  emo- 
tionalism, cannot  be  ignored  either  in  honor, 
decency,  or  plain  common  sense.  This  is  a 
democracy  in  which  the  treaty-making  pow- 

•  • 


FOREWORD 

ers  of  government  are  under  the  ultimate 
control  of  the  electorate.  Make  no  doubt 
that  the  Irish  vote  will  be  a  block  vote  against 
England  and  all  things  English  as  long  as 
the  Irish  question  is  allowed  to  persist.  It 
must  be  remembered,  also,  that  for  forty 
years  the  cause  of  Ireland  has  been  pleaded 
unceasingly  in  the  United  States  by  a  host  of 
brilliant  and  persuasive  personalities,  with 
the  result  that  a  great  body  of  liberal  senti- 
ment is  firm  in  the  belief  that  Irish  wrongs 
are  real  and  call  for  redress.  Nor  may  it  be 
forgotten  that  the  history  of  the  United 
States,  written  in  a  spirit  of  bumptious  na- 
tionalism, has  not  been  calculated  to  make 
for  Anglo-American  understanding.  The  com- 
radeship of  a  great  adventure  in  humanity 
merely  anesthetized  this  feeling,  and  any 
definite  anti-English  campaign  will  stir  it  to 
ugly  life. 

These  forces,  assembled  and  assemblable, 
given  unchanged  conditions  and  faced  by 
anything  less  than  concerted  opposition,  will 
have  power  to  direct  and  shape  the  foreign 
policies  of  the  United  States.  What,  then, 
is  to  be  the  attitude  of  those  Americans  who 
are  not  of  Irish  blood  and  who  have  no  con- 
cern with  the  Irish  question  save  as  it  bears 

•  •  • 
Xlll 


FOREWORD 

upon  the  destinies  of  the  United  States?  It 
is  idle  to  adopt  a  tone  of  heavy  reproof  and 
talk  of  ^^ America  first/'  America  has  al- 
ways been  first  with  the  Irish- American.  Men 
of  Ireland  gave  heart  and  strength  to  Wash- 
ington, they  died  by  thousands  that  the 
Union  might  endure,  and  of  the  army  raised 
to  crush  German  absolutism  fully  15  per 
cent,  were  of  Irish  birth  or  descent.  It  is 
with  this  record  of  love  and  sacrifice  behind 
them  that  the  Irish  in  the  United  States  call 
upon  America  to  lend  hope  to  their  unhappy 
motherland.  It  is  a  call  that  America  must 
answer.     A  decision  cannot  be  evaded. 

If  the  contentions  of  Ireland  are  without 
justice,  the  Irish  in  the  United  States  must 
not  longer  be  permitted  to  stand  in  the  way 
of  those  international  amities  that  consti- 
tute the  keystone  in  the  arch  of  world  peace. 
If  it  stands  proved  that  Ireland  suffers  un- 
bearable oppressions,  and  is  to-day  outside 
the  justice  for  which  millions  have  died,  it  is 
the  plain  duty  of  England  to  remedy  a  con- 
dition that  blocks  the  free  and  friendly  part- 
nership of  nations. 

It  is  to  furnish  the  facts  upon  which  an 
honest  and  intelligent  answer  may  be  based 
that  this  little  volume  has  been  written. 

xiv 


IRELAND'S  FIGHT   FOR   FREEDOM 


IRELAND'S  FIGHT  FOR  FREEDOM 

Chapter  I 
The  Story  of  ''Home  Rule'' 

FROM  1870  to  1916  Home  Rule  meant 
Ireland  and  Ireland  meant  Home  Rule. 
The  movement  and  the  nation  were  one  and 
rang  through  the  world  in  a  single  great 
appeal.  For  the  first  time  in  seven  cen- 
turies the  Irish  put  armed  force  aside  and 
submitted  their  demand  for  independence  to 
the  arbitral  justice  of  an  English  Parliament. 
The  Irish  Republican  Brotherhood  was  a 
memory,  the  Fenian  leaders  lived  as  exiles, 
Sinn  Fein  was  not  even  an  anticipation,  and 
a  crushed  and  dispirited  people  indorsed  the 
decision  to  substitute  constitutional  methods 
for  the  sword. 

From  1195  to  1867  virtually  every  Irish 
generation  had  hurled  its  naked  breasts 
against  the  might  of  England,  only  to  sink 

I 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

down  to  defeat  and  new  despair  under  sheer 
weight  of  numbers.  The  Home  Rule  move- 
ment marked  the  ascendancy  of  the  mod- 
erates, hopeless  as  to  rebellion,  but  hopeful, 
indeed,  that  the  peaceful  presentation  of 
Ireland's  case  would  win  redress  of  ancient 
wrongs.  Its  rise  and  fall  stands  as  a  distinct 
chapter  in  Irish  history,  illuminative  in  itself, 
but  equally  valuable  for  its  lantern  rays  into 
the  past  and  the  searchlight  that  it  throws 
on  the  present  and  future. 

Isaac  Butt  may  be  written  down  as  the 
father  of  Home  Rule.  An  Ulster  man,  the 
son  of  a  Presbyterian  minister,  his  sense  of 
fair  play  made  him  place  his  brilliant  legal 
talents  at  the  service  of  these  unhappy  scores 
who  were  dragnetted  after  the  Fenian  up- 
rising of  '67.  The  infamy  of  the  trials,  the 
packed  juries,  the  bitter  prejudice  of  the 
judges,  all  combined  to  change  the  intense 
conservatism  of  his  youth,  and  he  soon  took 
rank  as  a  leader  in  the  fight  for  Irish  freedom. 
The  futile  rebellions  of  the  past,  however, 
no  less  than  his  legahstic  bent,  led  Butt 
sharply  away  from  force  and  he  evolved  the 
doctrine  of  evidence  and  argument. 

The  Fenians,  distrustful  always,  but  driven 
by  their  helplessness,  as  well  as  their  love 

2 


THE   STORY   OF    ''HOME   RULE'' 

and  faith  in  Butt,  gave  him  authority  in  the 
name  of  Ireland,  and  in  1870  he  rose  in  the 
Parliament  at  Westminster  and  launched  his 
campaign  of  appeal  to  the  justice  of  England. 
He  lived  to  see  his  optimism  mocked  and 
his  hope  destroyed.  A  gentle  soul  and  gen- 
tlemanly, his  greatest  victory  was  that  the 
English  members  came  to  listen  to  him  in 
time,  although  amusedly  alwa^^s.  He  lived 
also  to  see  the  coming  of  one  who  was  not 
gentle,  whose  words  were  sledge-hammers, 
whose  tactics  turned  amused  indifference 
into  furious  attention. 

Charles  Stewart  Parnell  found  Parliament 
a  legislative  body  and  he  made  it  a  bedlam. 
A  man  of  ice  and  iron,  hating  England  with 
a  cold,  deadly  hatred,  a  genius  in  leadership, 
a  master  of  obstruction,  his  repeated  fili- 
busters soon  proved  conclusively  that  until 
the  Irish  question  was  considered  England's 
legislative  body  need  not  hope  to  consider 
any  other  question  intelligently  or  con- 
secutively. 

Obstructing  boldly  in  Westminster,  he  con- 
structed no  less  boldly  in  Ireland.  Not 
Grattan  nor  O'Connell  was  more  the  idol 
of  the  Irish  than  this  icy,  aloof  Protestant 
who  made  no  other  appeal  than  love  for  his 

3 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

land,  hatred  of  the  oppressor,  and  fierce  de- 
termination that  Ireland  should  stand  free 
of  her  chains. 

He  put  himself  whole-heartedly  behind 
Davitt^s  Land  League  until  all  Ireland 
seethed  with  revolt;  it  was  Parnell's  fertile 
mind  that  saw  the  possibilities  of  the  boy- 
cott; from  north  to  south  he  preached  unity, 
resistance,  and  courage;  arrest  and  imprison- 
ment could  not  check  him,  for  from  Kil- 
mainham  jail  he  dictated  terms  to  his 
captors. 

Soon  the  amazing  spectacle  was  witnessed 
of  both  parties,  Liberal  and  Conservative, 
bidding  for  the  support  of  Parnell  and  his 
once  despised  following.  Gladstone  was  his 
choice,  but  that  great  leader  was  not  yet 
ready  for  complete  acceptance,  and  Parnell 
used  his  balance  of  power  to  unseat  the 
Liberals.  The  Tories,  under  Salisbury  and 
Churchill,  were  more  than  placatory,  passing 
many  helpful  Irish  laws,  but  while  they  de- 
bated as  to  complete  surrender,  Gladstone 
acted,  pledging  himself  and  his  party  to 
Home  Rule.  Out  went  the  Tories  at  Par- 
nell's behest,  and  in  1886  Gladstone  intro- 
duced the  first  Home  Rule  bill. 

There  is  interest  in  the  speculation  that 

4 


THE   STORY  OF   ^^HOME   RULE'' 

the  whole  course  of  history  might  have  been 
changed  had  Parnell  made  his  alliance  with 
Salisbury  and  Churchill.  In  the  ranks  of 
the  Tories  were  all  those  most  bitterly  op- 
posed to  Irish  freedom  and  a  bargain  with 
them  would  have  destroyed  the  very  citadel 
of  prejudice.  As  it  was,  the  Tories  straight- 
way adopted  antagonism  to  Home  Rule  as 
a  fundamental  tenet  and  the  Ulster  vote 
grew  as  a  source  of  Tory  strength  until  it 
ruled  the  Unionist  party  in  1914. 

It  was  asserted  at  the  time  that  the  debate 
marked  the  very  height  of  Gladstone's  cour- 
age and  eloquence.  For  three  hours  and 
twenty-five  minutes  he  mercilessly  portrayed 
the  shames  and  failures  of  English  rule  in 
Ireland,  ending  with  this  impassioned  pero- 
ration: '^Go  into  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  world,  ransack  the  literature  of  all  coun- 
tries, find  if  you  can  a  single  voice,  a  single 
book,  in  which  the  conduct  of  England  toward 
Ireland  is  anywhere  treated  except  with  pro- 
found and  bitter  condemnation.  Are  these 
the  traditions  by  which  we  are  exhorted  to 
stand?  No.  They  are,  in  fact,  the  sad 
exception  to  the  glory  of  England.  They 
are  a  broad  and  black  spot  upon  the  pages  of 
its  history.     What  we  want  to  do  is  to  stand 

5 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

by  the  traditions  of  which  we  are  the  heirs 
in  all  matters  except  our  relations  with  Ire- 
land, and  to  make  our  relations  with  Ireland 
to  conform  to  the  other  traditions  of  our 
country.  So  we  hail  the  demand  of  Ireland 
for  what  I  call  a  blessed  oblivion  of  the  past. 
She  asks  also  a  boon  for  the  future,  and  that 
boon  for  the  future,  unless  we  are  much  mis- 
taken, will  be  a  boon  to  us  in  respect  of  honor, 
no  less  than  a  boon  to  her  in  respect  of  hap- 
piness, prosperity,  and  peace.'' 

The  bill  was  defeated,  owing  to  the  de- 
sertion of  Joseph  Chamberlain,  Gladstone's 
trusted  lieutenant,  whose  shrewd  political 
sense  saw  even  then  that  Imperialism  would 
carry  him  faster  and  farther  than  any  mere 
hobby-horse  of  justice.  Gladstone,  eager  to 
test  public  opinion,  went  to  the  country  at 
once,  but  lost  the  election  by  a  narrow  mar- 
gin, and  the  triumphant  Tories  lost  little 
time  in  bitter  reprisal.  A  Coercion  bill 
scourged  Ireland  with  wholesale  arrests,  and 
even  as  Parnell  rallied  his  forces  to  the  fight, 
letters  were  printed  that  seemed  to  connect 
him  directly  with  the  atrocious  Phoenix  Park 
murders.  Forgery  was  proved  quickly  and 
the  wretched  Pigott  committed  suicide,  but 
there  was  that  coming  that  struck  the  strong 


THE  STORY  OF  ^'HOME  RULE" 

man  down.  A  Captain  O'Shea  filed  suit  for 
divorce,  naming  Parnell  as  corespondent, 
and  the  hue  and  cry  of  outraged  moralists 
drove  him  from  public  life,  a  broken  man 
quite  soon  to  die. 

The  scandal  killed  Home  Rule  as  with  a 
dagger-thrust,  for,  while  Parnell's  private  life 
had  no  bearing  whatever  upon  the  right  or 
wrong  of  the  Irish  question,  all  history  points 
out  that  society  prefers  to  let  injustice  flourish 
and  millions  die  rather  than  that  an  infraction 
of  the  moral  code  as  publicly  exposed  by  a 
public  leader  be  permitted  to  go  unpunished. 
It  was  not  until  1892  that  Gladstone  dared 
to  introduce  a  second  Home  Rule  bill.  It 
swept  through  the  House  of  Commons  this 
time,  but  was  promptly  vetoed  by  the  House 
of  Lords,  Salisbury  blandly  dismissing  the 
Irish  as  '^ Hottentots.^'  Old,  worn,  and  bit- 
terly disgusted,  Gladstone  retired  to  private 
life,  but  in  a  last  prophetic  speech  he  warned 
England  that  neither  Home  Rule  nor  any 
other  bill  embodying  social  justice  could  ever 
be  passed  until  the  veto  power  of  the  House  of 
Lords  had  been  destroyed.  Home  Rule 
straightway  identified  itself  with  the  whole 
English  fight  for  progress,  and  in  1911  the 
battle  of  years  was  won  by  the  adoption  of 


HIGH   LIGHTS   OF   IRISH  HISTORY 

the  Parliament  Act  which  provided  that  any 
bill  passed  by  the  House  of  Commons  in  three 
successive  annual  sessions  should,  on  the  third 
occasion,  receive  the  royal  assent  and  become 
a  law. 

This  meant  that  the  plain  people  of  Eng- 
land approved  self-government  for  the  Irish, 
for  throughout  this  campaign  Mr.  Asquith 
stated  unequivocally  that  the  Liberal  party 
was  pledged  absolutely  to  the  Irish  cause  and 
that  one  of  the  first  uses  of  the  Parliament  Act 
would  be  to  drive  through  a  Home  Rule  bill. 
This  pledge  was  redeemed  on  April  11,  1912, 
and  Home  Rule  passed  its  first  reading  by  an 
overwhelming  majority.  In  order  that  there 
might  be  no  doubt  as  to  Irish  sentiment,  a 
national  convention  was  called  in  Dublin, 
the  largest  and  most  representative  assem- 
blage ever  brought  together  on  Irish  soil. 
Participated  in  by  Catholics,  Protestants, 
and  Jews,  clergy  and  laity,  this  gathering  in- 
dorsed the  action  of  Redmond,  Dillon,  Dev- 
lin, and  O^Connor  and  approved  the  Home 
Rule  bill  without  a  single  dissenting  vote. 

The  measure  swept  through  the  House  of 
Commons  in  all  its  stages  and,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  was  vetoed  by  the  House  of  Lords. 
In  no  respect  was  it  an  alarming  measure,  for 

8 


THE  STORY  OF  ''HOME  RULE^' 

it  did  not  even  approximate  the  powers  and 
scope  of  the  Canadian  form  of  government. 
It  created  an  Irish  Parhament,  yes,  but  the 
Senate  was  to  be  nominated  by  the  govern- 
ment, and  the  crown  reserved  all  questions 
connected  with  the  army,  the  navy,  foreign 
relations,  coinage,  and  the  collection  of  taxes; 
no  power  over  trade  was  granted,  nor  over 
the  post-office,  nor  over  the  constabulary, 
and  the  Lord-Lieutenant  was  vested  with 
power  to  reverse  or  annul  all  legislation  en- 
acted by  the  Irish  Parliament. 

Little  enough,  in  all  truth,  yet  even  this 
flavor  of  freedom  was  an  offense  to  the  Tories. 
Again,  in  1913  the  bill  was  introduced  and 
passed,  and  again  the  House  of  Lords  exer- 
cised its  veto  powers.  Admittedly  unable  to 
check  this  legislative  process  by  peaceful 
means,  the  Tories  of  England  had  already 
turned  to  the  violence  of  rebellion.  At  every 
step  in  the  proceedings,  from  1911  on,  the 
House  of  Commons  voted  under  the  menace 
of  threats  that  did  not  stop  short  of  treason. 
Claiming  that  Ulster,  the  northern  province 
of  Ireland,  was  solidly  Protestant  and  a  unit 
in  devotion  to  the  British  Empire,  the  Tories 
insisted  that  Home  Rule  would  subject  this 
loyal  minority  to  the  rule  of  a  ^'bigoted, 

9 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

shiftless  Roman  Catholic  majority/^  and 
boldly  preached  resistance  in  terms  of  blood 
and  battle. 

Some  Ulster  Irish,  but  English  Tories  for 
the  most  part,  launched  a  veritable  crusade 
of  sedition.  Sir  Edward  Carson,  Sir  Fred- 
erick Smith,  Mr.  Balfour,  Bonar  Law,  Walter 
Long,  Sir  James  Craig,  James  Campbell, 
Lord  Curzon,  and  Lord  Robert  Cecil  declared 
openly  and  repeatedly  that  Home  Rule 
would  be  resisted  by  force;  arms  were  brought 
into  Ulster  from  Germany,  and  there  were 
those  bold  enough  to  assert  that,  if  the  blow 
fell,  ^^  German  aid  would  be  sought  and  wel- 
comed.'' Here,  for  instance,  are  specific  quo- 
tations : 

In  the  event  of  this  purposed  Parliament  being 
thrust  upon  us,  we  solemnly  and  mutually  pledge  our- 
selves not  to  recognize  its  authority.  ...  I  do  not 
care  twopence  whether  it  is  treason  or  not. — Sir  Ed- 
ward Carson. 

If  Home  Rule  were  persisted  in  it  would  lead  to 
civil  war,  and  if  he  lived  in  Belfast  he  would  seriously 
consider  whether  rebellion  were  not  better  than  Home 
Rule. — Lord  Robert  Cecil. 

If  they  were  put  out  of  the  Union  ...  he  would 

infinitely  prefer  to  change  his  allegiance  right  over  to 

the  Emperor  of  Germany  or  any  one  else  who  had  got 

a  proper  and  stable  government. — Major  Crawford. 

10 


THE   STORY  OF  ''HOME  RULE'^ 

It  is  a  fact  which  I  do  not  think  any  one  who  knows 
anything  about  Ireland  will  deny,  that  these  people  in 
the  northeast  of  Ireland,  from  old  prejudices  perhaps 
more  than  from  anything  else,  from  the  whole  of  their 
past  history,  would  prefer,  I  believe,  to  accept  the 
government  of  a  foreign  country  rather  than  submit 
to  be  governed  by  the  gentlemen  below  the  gang- 
way.— BoNAR  Law,  in  House  of  Commons. 

There  is  a  spirit  spreading  abroad  which  I  can  testi- 
fy to  from  my  personal  knowledge  that  Germany  and 
the  German  Emperor  would  be  preferred  to  the  rule  of 
John  Redmond,  Patrick  Ford,  and  the  Molly  Ma- 
guires. — Captain  Craig,  M.P.,  Morning  Post,  Janu- 
ary 9,  1911. 

It  may  not  be  known  to  the  rank  and  file  of  Unionists 
that  we  have  the  offer  of  aid  from  a  powerful  conti- 
nental monarch  who,  if  Home  Rule  is  forced  on  the 
Protestants  of  Ireland,  is  prepared  to  send  an  army 
sufficient  to  release  England  of  any  further  trouble  in 
Ireland  by  attaching  it  to  his  dominion,  believing,  as 
he  does,  that  if  our  King  breaks  his  coronation  oath  by 
signing  the  Home  Rule  bill  he  will,  by  so  doing,  have 
forfeited  his  claim  to  rule  Ireland.  And  should  our 
King  sign  the  Home  Rule  bill,  the  Protestants  of 
Ireland  will  welcome  this  continental  deliverer  as 
their  forefathers,  under  similar  circumstances,  did 
once  before. — The  Irish  Churchman,  November  14, 
1913. 

Who  shall  say  that  Mr.  Asquith  was  not 

justified  when  he  declared:  ^'The   reckless 

rhodomontade  at  Blenheim  in  the  early  sum- 

11 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

mer,  as  developed  and  amplified  in  this  Ul- 
ster campaign,  furnishes  for  the  future  a 
complete  Grammar  of  Anarchy.  The  pos- 
session of  a  conscience  and  a  repugnance  to 
obey  inconvenient  or  objectionable  laws  are 
not  the  monopoly  of  the  Protestants  of  the 
northeast  of  Ireland.  This  new  dogma,  coun- 
tersigned, as  it  now  is,  by  aU  the  leading  men 
of  the  Tory  party,  will  be  invoked,  and 
rightly  invoked,  cited,  and  rightly  cited, 
called  in  aid,  and  rightly  called  in  aid,  when- 
ever the  spirit  of  lawlessness,  fed  and  fostered 
by  a  sense  whether  of  real  or  imaginary  in- 
justice, takes  body  and  shape,  and  claims  to 
stop  the  ordered  machinery  of  a  self-govern- 
ing society  ...  a  more  deadly  blow — I  say  it 
with  the  utmost  deliberation  and  with  the 
fullest  conviction — a  more  deadly  blow  has 
never  been  dealt  in  our  time  by  any  body  of 
responsible  politicians  at  the  very  founda- 
tions on  which  democratic  government  rests.'' 
Nor  did  these  men  let  their  threatened  re- 
bellion stop  at  words.  On  September  24, 
1913,  a  provisional  government  of  Ulster  was 
formed,  at  Belfast,  with  Sir  Edward  Carson 
as  chairman,  James  Campbell,  James  Cham- 
bers, John  Gordon,  and  William  Moore,  pro- 
yisional  governors;  Gen.  Sir  George  Richard- 


THE  STORY  OF  '^HOME  RULE" 

son,  commander-in-chief;  Sir  Frederick  Smith 
and  Sir  James  Craig,  aides-de-camp,  and 
Col.  Hackett  Pain,  chief  of  staff. 

Training-camps  were  estabUshed  in  Ulster, 
and  at  a  great  dinner  in  London  Carson  was 
presented  with  a  shining  sword.  The  Tory 
ladies  of  England  offered  their  homes  as  hos- 
pitals for  such  Ulster  patriots  as  should  be 
wounded  in  the  patriotic  work  of  rebellion, 
and  their  daughters  volunteered  as  nurses. 
Mr.  Balfour,  Lord  Curzon,  Lord  Robert 
Cecil,  Bonar  Law,  Smith,  and  Walter  Long 
solemnly  pledged  the  support  of  the  Unionist 
party  to  the  rebels. 

The  year  1914  opened  with  both  forces  in 
battle  array.  It  was  the  third  year,  the 
passing  of  the  Home  Rule  bill  seemed  to  be 
automatic,  and  Bonar  Law  passionately  de- 
clared that  the  country  was  rapidly  and  in- 
evitably drifting  to  civil  war.  Parliament 
opened  February  10,  1914,  and  an  instant 
attempt  to  amend  the  Home  Rule  bill  was 
rejected  by  a  vote  of  333  to  78,  proving  con- 
clusively that  threats  had  worked  no  change 
in  the  sentiment  of  the  House.  On  March 
3d  England  was  startled  by  the  publication 
of  a  ^^  British  covenant^  ^  declaring  that  the 
passage  of  a  Home  Rule  bill  would  furnish 

13 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

justification  for  any  action  that  might  be 
effective  to  prevent  it  from  going  into  opera- 
tion. Among  the  many  who  signed  this 
amazing  document  of  defiance  were  Earl 
Roberts,  the  Duke  of  Portland,  Viscounts 
Halifax  and  Milner,  Lords  Aldenham,  Bal- 
four of  Burleigh,  the  Dean  of  Canterbury, 
and  Rudyard  Kipling. 

In  March  the  Unionists  scored  their  first 
real  victory.  For  some  reason  that  has  never 
been  explained  satisfactorily,  Mr.  Asquith 
weakened  before  the  threat  of  rebellion  and 
announced  ^^ projected  concessions''  to  Ulster 
in  moving  the  second  reading  of  the  Home 
Rule  bill.  Repeating  that  the  government 
adhered  firmly  to  the  measure,  he  expressed 
anxiety  to  have  the  new  regime  start  off  with 
the  best  chance  of  success.  His  plan  pro- 
posed that  any  county  in  Ulster,  including 
the  boroughs  of  Belfast  and  Londonderry, 
might  vote  itself  out  for  a  term  of  six 
years  from  the  first  meeting  of  the  Irish 
legislature  in  Dublin.  The  counties  ex- 
cluded would  come  into  the  Home  Rule 
scheme  automatically  at  the  end  of  six  years 
unless  the  Imperial  Parliament  determined 
otherwise. 

Redmond,     swallowing     bitterness     and 

14 


THE  STORY  OF  "HOME  RULE'' 

checking  the  rage  of  his  followers,  stated  that 
the  proposals  marked  the  extreme  limit  of 
concession  and  that  the  Nationalists  would 
only  acquiesce  in  them  if  they  were  frankly 
accepted  by  their  Ulster  opponents.  Bonar 
Law  and  Carson  refused,  demanding  per- 
manent exclusion  of  all  nine  counties.  In 
the  face  of  this  defiance  it  seemed  for  a 
while  as  if  the  courage  of  government  would 
be  restored.  Winston  Churchill,  speaking 
on  March  14th,  said  that  the  Prime  Minister 
had  made  a  fair  and  reasonable  offer,  the 
assent  of  the  Nationalist  leaders  had  been 
yielded,  and  it  seemed  to  him  final.  It  rep- 
resented the  hardest  sacrifice  ever  asked  of 
Irish  Nationalism,  but  the  Unionists  were 
not  satisfied.  The  Ulstermen  still  showed  the 
old  spirit  of  ascendancy.  They  seemed  to 
think  a  settlement  could  only  be  achieved 
by  threats;  but,  in  the  event  of  violence, 
the  larger  issue  would  be  dominant  whether 
parliamentary  government  was  to  be  broken 
down  before  the  menace  of  armed  force. 
That  had  been  fought  out  at  Marston  Moor. 
Apparently  some  sections  of  the  propertied 
classes  desired  to  subvert  parliamentary 
government.  Against  such  a  mood,  when 
manifested  in  action,  there  was  no  lawful 

3  15 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

measure  from  which  the  government  should 
or  V.  '>uld  shrink.  The  government  met  the 
menace  with  patience,  but  with  firmness. 
They  were  responsible  for  the  peace  of  the 
British  Empire.  Who  would  dare  to  break 
it  up?  There  must  be  one  law  for  all;  Great 
Britain  was  not  to  be  reduced  to  the  condi- 
tion of  Mexico.  If  Ulster  sought  peace  and 
fair  play,  she  knew  where  to  find  it;  if  she 
were  to  be  made  a  tool,  if  parliamentary 
systems  were  to  be  brought  to  the  challenge 
of  force,  he  could  only  say,  ^^Let  us  go  for- 
ward together  and  put  these  grave  matters 
to  the  proof." 

On  March  16th,  the  Prime  Minister  made 
a  further  statement  in  the  Commons,  saying 
that  the  government  had  put  forward  its 
proposals  for  the  separate  treatment  of 
Ulster,  not  as  the  best  way  of  dealing  with 
Home  Rule,  but  as  a  basis  of  settlement;  if 
they  were  accepted  in  principle,  the  bill 
would  have  to  be  supplemented  by  a  number 
of  adjustments,  financial  and  administrative, 
which  were  being  worked  out,  but  that  the 
details  would  not  be  formulated  unless  the 
general  principle  were  adopted  and  treated 
as  a  basis  of  agreement. 

The  Unionists  answered  with  denuncia- 

16 


THE  STORY  OF  '^HOME  RULE'' 

tion  and  disorder,  but  the  most  sinister  note 
was  sounded  by  Bonar  Law  when  he  de- 
clared, '^  Soldiers  are  citizens  like  the  rest  of 
us/^  conveying  the  first  intimation  that  the 
army  had  been  seduced  from  its  allegiance. 
Lloyd  George  met  this  challenge  boldly,  at- 
tacking the  House  of  Lords  and  the  Orange- 
men of  Ulster  as  enemies  of  popular  gov- 
ernment, declaring  that  they  proclaimed  the 
doctrine  of  ^^ optional  obedience''  and  threat- 
ened rebellion  in  order  that  they  might  not 
cease  to  be  the  dominant  caste. 

The  country  was  not  long  kept  in  suspense 
as  to  the  state  of  the  army.  On  March  14th, 
hearing  that  the  Ulster  Volunteers  planned 
to  seize  all  arsenals,  the  War  Office  sent  the 
following  instructions  to  General  Paget  in 
Ireland:  '^I  am  commanded  by  the  Army 
Council  to  inform  you  that  in  consequence  of 
reports  which  have  been  received  by  his 
Majesty's  government  that  attempts  may  be 
made  in  various  parts  of  Ireland  by  evil- 
disposed  persons  to  obtain  possession  of  arms, 
ammunition,  and  other  government  stores, 
it  is  considered  advisable  that  you  should  at 
once  take  special  precautions  for  safeguard- 
ing depots  and  other  places  where  arms  or 
stores  are  kept," 

IT 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Bonar  Law  now  stood  before  the  country 
as  a  true  prophet.  The  answer  to  the  War 
Office  order  was  mutiny.  General  Gough, 
commanding  the  Third  Cavahy  Brigade, 
handed  in  his  resignation,  and  fifty-seven  of 
his  officers  did  hkewise,  flatly  refusing  to 
proceed  to  Ulster  to  enforce  law  and  order. 
Not  a  resignation  was  accepted,  not  an  officer 
dismissed,  and  the  sole  result  was  to  make' 
credible  the  claim  that  the  army  was  con- 
trolled by  the  Unionists  and  not  by  the  gov- 
ernment. 

The  next  blow  at  duly  elected  authority 
came  on  April  24th,  when  35,000  rifles  and 
3,000,000  cartridges,  bought  in  Hamburg, 
were  landed  at  Larne  and  distributed  through 
Ulster  by  motor-trucks  in  open  defiance  of 
the  proclamation  forbidding  the  import  of 
arms.  Some  12,000  men  in  all  were  engaged 
in  the  landing.  Volunteers  guarded  the 
roads,  the  telegraphs  and  telephones  were 
interrupted,  the  coast-guards  were  powerless, 
and  the  customs  officers  and  the  police  took 
no  steps  to  interfere  effectively. 

Mr.  Asquith  stated  that  in  view  of  ''this 
grave  and  unprecedented  outrage''  the  gov- 
ernment would  take  appropriate  steps  with- 
out delay  to  vindicate  the  authority  of  the 

18 


THE  STORY  OF  ^^HOME  RULE'' 

law,  but  nothing  was  done,  and  from  this 
point  on  a  fatal  note  of  weakness  crept  into 
the  words  and  policy  of  the  ministry.  Mr. 
Balfour  even  began  to  talk  jubilantly  of  a 
^^  clean-cut  separation  of  the  northeast  of 
Ireland  from  any  scheme  of  Home  Rule.'' 

It  is  difficult  to  assign  a  reason  for  this  new 
policy  of  indecision  and  actual  cowardice. 
The  powerful  Labor  party,  the  Liberal  party 
itself,  and  a  majority  of  the  English  people 
were  plainly  eager  that  the  test  be  made 
between  the  government  and  the  Ulster 
rebels.  On  April  6th,  directly  after  the 
Gough  mutiny,  Home  Rule  had  passed  its 
second  reading  by  an  undiminished  majority. 
On  May  25th,  also,  when  the  bill  came  up 
for  third  reading,  it  passed  enthusiastically. 
Now  it  was  in  the  power  of  Mr.  Asquith  to 
have  ended  the  matter  decisively.  He  could 
have  brought  the  session  to  an  end  and,  after 
a  month  given  to  the  Lords  for  considera- 
tion, handed  the  bill  to  the  King  for  signa- 
ture. Instead  of  that,  he  did  nothing,  leav- 
ing all  action  to  the  rebels.  At  East  Belfast 
on  June  2d  Carson  shouted  that  he  ^'had 
come  to  make  arrangements  for  the  final 
scene,"  that  he  ''was  going  to  have  more 
Mausers." 

19 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY     " 

To  meet  the  menace  of  the  Ulster  Volun- 
teers, a  Home  Rule  organization  called  the 
National  Volunteers  had  sprung  into  being. 
With  Asquith  weakening,  Carson  increasingly 
arrogant,  and  at  least  a  part  of  the  British 
army  openly  siding  with  Ulster,  these  Na- 
tional Volunteers  now  leaped  to  an  amazing 
strength.  On  June  1st  their  members  were 
estimated  at  41,000  in  Ulster,  42,000  in 
Leinster,  27,000  in  Munster,  and  19,000  in 
Connaught. 

On  June  23d  the  long-threatened  amend- 
ing bill  was  introduced  in  the  House  of  Lords 
by  the  Marquis  of  Crewe,  who  explained  that 
it  was  destined  to  meet  the  ^^  religious  fore- 
bodings of  Ulster, ''  and  its  fears  regarding 
the  '^business  capacity '^  of  the  men  of  the 
rest  of  Ireland.  He  admitted  that  the  ex- 
clusion of  Ulster  was  not  liked  either  by  the 
Opposition  leaders  or  the  Nationalists,  and 
that  Disraeli  had  forcefully  repudiated  the 
doctrine  that  Ireland  was  two  nations.  The 
government  had  had  a  preference  for  giving 
autonomy  to  Ulster,  but  this  the  Unionists 
refused.  To  exclude  the  whole  of  Ulster  was 
impossible;  it  would  not  be  a  ^^ clean  cut," 
but  a  ^^  ragged  cut,"  owing  to  the  great 
Nationalist   majorities   in   Donegal,    Mona- 

20 


THE   STORY  OF  ^^HOME  RULE'' 

ghan,  and  Cavan.  The  bill  would,  there- 
fore, embody  the  Prime  Minister's  offer  of 
March  9th,  that  within  three  months  after 
its  passing  any  Ulster  county  should  be  en- 
titled to  vote  itself  in  or  out.  The  exclusion 
would  be  for  six  years  from  the  first  meeting 
of  the  Irish  Parliament;  at  the  end  of  that 
period  there  would  be  obligatory  reconsid- 
eration, not  automatic  inclusion. 

On  June  28th  occurred  the  murder  of  Sara- 
jevo. Aside  from  shock,  however,  public 
opinion  was  not  disturbed.  Many  speeches 
of  tribute  were  made,  Bonar  Law  declaring 
that  ^^no  living  sovereign  enjoyed  in  fuller 
measure  than  the  aged  Emperor  the  respect, 
confidence,  and  love  of  his  people,'^  while  the 
Marquis  of  Lansdowne  laid  stress  on  the 
^^  manliness,  simplicity  of  character,  ability, 
and  interest  in  public  affairs''  of  the  mur- 
dered archduke. 

Early  in  July  more  machine-guns  were 
landed  for  the  Ulstermen,  and  it  was  an- 
nounced that  ^^rest-stations''  were  being 
arranged  in  England  for  Ulster  refugee  wom- 
en and  children.  On  July  10th  Sir  Edward 
Carson  was  given  an  enthusiastic  welcome  at 
Belfast,  and  Mr.  Walter  Long,  addressing  a 
meeting  of  Ulster  delegates,  declared  that 

21 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

the  supreme  crisis  was  at  hand,  and  again 
pledged  the  Unionist  party^s  unflinching  sup- 
port to  Ulster's  armed  resistance.  On  Mon- 
day, July  13th,  70,000  men  marched  from 
Belfast  to  Drumbeg,  where  Sir  Edward  Car- 
son again  emphasized  Ulster's  determina- 
tion to  resist.  '^Give  us  a  clean  cut,"  he 
said,  ^^or  come  and  fight  us." 

Debate  on  the  amending  bill  began  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  Lord  Morley,  of  Black- 
burn, in  moving  the  second  reading,  stated 
that  no  part  of  Ulster  was  homogeneous;  the 
National  Volunteers  had  dispelled  the  illu- 
sion that  the  masses  in  the  south  and  west 
of  Ireland  had  lost  their  care  for  Home  Rule, 
and  the  danger  was  that  the  constitutional  agi- 
tation for  self-government  might  give  place 
to  violence  unless  England  granted  justice 
quickly.  The  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  an- 
swered, furiously,  that  the  bill  was  fit  for  a 
museum  and  wholly  inadequate  to  avert 
a  calamity,  and  under  his  direction  the 
Lords  proceeded  to  transform  it  utterly. 

Ulster,  all  nine  counties,  was  entirely  and 
permanently  excluded  from  the  Home  Rule 
scheme,  and  was  to  be  administered  by  a 
Secretary  of  State  through  offices  and  depart- 
ments different  from  those  exercising  author- 

22 


THE  STORY  OF  ^'HOME  RULE'^ 

ity  under  the  Home  Rule  bill;  Ulster  would 
continue  to  send  members  to  the  Imperial 
Parliament,  in  which  Irish  representation 
would  be  reduced  to  twenty-seven;  judges 
would  be  appointed  as  under  the  existing 
system,  and  the  appeal  from  Irish  courts  to 
the  House  of  Lords  would  continue;  land 
purchase  would  be  reserved,  so  would  the 
Royal  Irish  Constabulary,  and  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant  would  control  the  Dublin  metro- 
politan police. 

It  was  an  open  declaration  of  war,  and  so 
intended,  but  even  as  Nationalists  and  Lib- 
erals gathered  to  meet  it  an  astounding  in- 
terruption occurred.  On  July  20th,  the  very 
day  the  gutted  bill  was  to  be  taken  up  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  King  called  a  con- 
ference on  the  Irish  question  at  Buckingham 
Palace,  consisting  of  Mr.  Asquith  and  Lloyd 
George;  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  and  Bo- 
nar  Law  for  the  Unionists  of  Great  Britain; 
John  Redmond  and  John  Dillon  for  the  Na- 
tionalists; and  Sir  Edward  Carson  and  Sir 
James  Craig  for  the  Ulstermen. 

This  unexpected  move  was  received  with 
the  utmost  alarm  by  the  Nationalists,  the 
Labor  party,  and  a  section  of  the  Liberals. 
The  Nationalists  knew  that  they  could  go  no 

23 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

farther  in  concession,  while  the  Labor  leaders 
and  the  Liberals  declared  that  the  uncon- 
stitutional interference  of  the  King  sounded 
the  real  note  of  danger.  It  has  long  been 
rumored  that  the  King  would  not  sign  the 
Home  Rule  bill  except  in  conjunction  with 
an  amending  bill,  so  that  the  Unionists 
needed  only  to  make  amendment  impossi- 
ble to  insure  a  crisis,  ending  probably  in  the 
dismissal  of  Asquith  and  a  general  election. 

The  Daily  News  called  the  conference  ^^a 
royal  coup  d^etat/^  and  the  Labor  party's 
views  were  expressed  by  Thomas,  who  ob- 
jected to  it  as  a  deliberate  attempt  to  defeat 
the  Parliament  Act,  and  also  because  ^Hwo 
rebels  had  been  invited  to  take  part.''  Labor 
leaders  using  the  language  of  Carson  and 
Law,  he  asserted,  bitterly,  would  have  known 
the  inside  of  a  jail  at  once. 

This  final  open  action  of  the  King  may  ex- 
plain why  Mr.  Asquith  weakened  when  he 
seemed  strongest,  announcing  ^'projected 
concessions''  to  Ulster  after  stating  in  public 
speech  that  Ulster's  rebellion  was  a  '^deadly 
blow  at  the  very  foundations  on  which  demo- 
cratic government  rests."  The  King,  Tory 
to  the  marrow  and  characteristically  Han- 
overian in  his  stubbornness,  has  ever  stood 

24 


THE  STORY  OF  ^^HOME  RULE'^ 

like  iron  against  any  measure  of  indepen- 
dence for  Ireland,  and  if  he  was  bold  enough 
to  intervene  at  the  last,  is  there  reason  to 
doubt  that  he  exerted  royal  pressure  pri- 
vately from  the  very  first?  In  any  event, 
the  conference  ended  in  failure  after  four 
days  of  furious  debate.  The  citation  of  elec- 
tion returns,  showing  that  Donegal,  Mon- 
aghan,  and  Cavan  were  overwhelmingly  Na- 
tionalist, forced  the  surrender  of  Unionist 
claims  to  these  three  counties,  but  Lansdowne 
and  Carson  insisted  upon  the  arbitrary  and 
permanent  exclusion  of  the  other  six  counties 
of  Ulster.  Redmond  and  Dillon  pointed  out 
that  the  Nationalists  also  possessed  majori- 
ties in  Tyrone  and  Fermanagh  and  insisted 
that  the  people  of  Ulster  be  allowed  to  vote 
on  inclusion  or  exclusion,  but  this  fair  propo- 
sition was  flatly  refused.  On  the  heels  of  the 
conference's  failure,  an  ugly  discrimination 
in  the  enforcement  of  law  further  intensified 
the  situation. 

On  July  25th  over  5,000  Ulster  Volunteers, 
fully  armed,  paraded  Belfast  without  the 
slightest  police  interference. 

On  July  26th  about  1,000  unarmed  Na- 
tional Volunteers  marched  from  Dublin  to 
Howth  to  unload  rifles  and  ammunition  from 

25 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

an  anchored  yacht.  Soldiers  and  police,  has- 
tily summoned,  tried  to  disarm  and  arrest 
the  Volunteers,  but  a  spirited  resistance  with 
fists  and  clubs  proved  successful  enough  to 
give  the  gun-bearers  time  for  escape.  It  was 
not  until  evening  that  the  soldiers — a  com- 
pany of  the  King^s  Own  Scottish  Borderers — 
marched  back  to  Dublin.  Crowds  gathered, 
yelling  and  jeering,  and  some  stones  were 
thrown,  whereat  fire  was  opened  upon  the 
people,  killing  four  and  wounding  sixty. 

A  commission  of  inquiry  was  appointed  at 
once,  but  did  not  report  until  October  1st, 
when  it  found  that  the  employment  of  the 
police  and  military  was  illegal,  that  General 
Cuthbert,  who  allowed  the  military  to  be 
used,  was  wrong  in  doing  so;  that  the  sol- 
diers were  not  justified  in  firing,  and  that 
the  twenty-one  soldiers  who  fired  did  so 
without  orders,  but  believing  that  they  had 
them.  But  ho  punishment  of  any  kind  was 
inflicted  upon  any  one. 

All  the  while  the  war-clouds  gathered.  On 
July  31st  Mr.  Asquith  announced  that  the 
amending  bill  would  have  to  be  postponed 
in  view  of  the  international  crisis.  On  Au- 
gust 2d  the  storm  burst. 


Chapter  II 
Broken  Pledges  or  ^^  German  Plots 


?> 


IN  the  hour  when  civiHzed  Europe  rallied  to 
beat  back  the  German  horror  there  came  a 
tremendous  moment  that  calm  historians  of 
the  future  will  assuredly  adjudge  the  glory 
of  Ireland  and  the  shame  of  England.  In  a 
speech  sublimely  eloquent  John  Redmond 
pledged  his  country  and  his  countrymen  to 
the  British  cause.  Possessed  of  full  ability 
to  dictate  terms,  he  did  not  stoop  to  barter. 
Holding  the  balance  of  power  with  his  eighty 
Irish  votes,  he  could  have  overthrown  the 
Liberal  ministry,  plunging  England  into  con- 
fusion and  ruin,  but  he  scorned  to  haggle. 
Instead  of  crying,  ^^Let  me  see  Home  Rule  in 
operation  before  I  move  a  hand  or  say  a 
word/'  Redmond  made  instant  decision  out 
of  his  own  honor  and  high  faith.  Looking 
beyond  Ireland,  he  saw  civilization  in  the 
balance;  sweeping  aside  seven  centuries  of 
oppression  and  a  year  of  betrayal,  he  flung 

27 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

himself,  his  party,  and  his  motherland  upon 
the  honesty  and  justice  of  England  in  one 
magnificent  gesture.  Dragging  his  party 
leaders  with  him,  he  campaigned  for  recruits 
in  Ireland  and  sent  his  own  brother  to  a 
grave  in  France. 

On  September  18th  Mr.  Asquith  sent  to 
the  King  the  Home  Rule  bill  he  had  been 
holding  back  for  six  weeks.  With  it,  for 
signature  with  the  same  pen,  he  sent  a  sus- 
pensory bill,  passed  in  four  days,  postponing 
operation  of  Home  Rule  indefinitely.  This 
was  the  answer  to  Redmond.  Nor  was  it 
all.  ^^Make  us  responsible  for  Ireland,'^ 
pleaded  the  Irish  leader.  '^Take  out  every 
English  soldier  and  we  will  guarantee  you 
law  and  order  and  friendship.''  The  request 
was  refused,  garrisons  were  continued,  and 
at  the  time  of  the  great  German  push,  when 
the  Allies  needed  every  man  to  beat  back 
what  seemed  certain  defeat,  over  50,000 
trained  and  well-equipped  English  soldiers 
were  in  Ireland.  Kitchener  also  added  to  the 
bitterness  by  an  unfortunate  remark  that 
received  wide  circulation.  When  waited  up- 
on by  Redmond,  who  spoke  to  him  in  terms 
of  250,000  recruits,  he  said:  ^'If  Ireland  gives 
me  5,000  I  will  say,  'Thank  you/    If  she 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR ''  GERMAN  PLOTS  '^ 


gives  me  12,000  I  will  say,   ^I  am  deeply 
obliged/'' 

Connaught  Rangers,  Munster  Fusiliers, 
and  Dublin  Fusiliers,  recruited  enthusiasti- 
cally, were  not  allowed  to  form  an  Irish 
brigade  as  Redmond  begged,  nor  even  per- 
mitted to  choose  their  own  officers,  these 
organizations,  90  per  cent.  Catholic  National- 
ists, being  put  under  the  command  of  Ulster 
and  English  Protestant  Unionists.  Women 
were  forbidden  to  make  green  banners  for 
their  fighting  sons,  and,  as  if  the  alienation 
of  the  Irish  had  been  decided  upon  as  an 
objective,  English  authority  in  Ireland  re- 
verted to  harshness.  Free  speech  and  free 
press  were  crushed,  men  and  women  were 
thrown  into  jail  for  the  most  trivial  offenses, 
the  right  to  assemble  was  denied,  and  depor- 
tations became  common.  As  Lloyd  George 
himself  bore  testimony:  '^At  the  most  cru- 
cial period  of  recruiting  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  some  stupidities,  which  at  times 
looked  almost  like  malignance,  were  per- 
petrated in  Ireland  and  were  beyond  belief. 
It  is  very  difficult  to  recover  a  lost  oppor- 
tunity of  that  kind  where  national  suscep- 
tibilities have  been  offended  and  original 
enthusiasm  killed.'' 

29 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

All  the  while  the  Ulster  leaders  were  con- 
tinuing their  policy  of  defiance  and  rebellion. 
Speaking  at  Belfast,  Sir  Edward  Carson  said : 
^'When  the  war  is  over  I  propose  to  summon 
the  Provisional  government  together.  And 
I  propose,  if  necessary,  so  far  as  Ulster  is 
concerned,  that  their  first  act  shall  be  to 
repeal  the  Home  Rule  bill  as  regards  Ulster. 
And  I  propose  in  the  same  act  to  enact  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  Volunteers  to  see  that  no 
act,  or  no  attempt  at  an  act,  under  that  bill 
should  ever  have  effect  in  Ulster.  .  .  .  We 
have  j)lenty  of  gunSy  and  we  are  going  to  keep 
them.     We  are  afraid  of  nothing ^ 

In  spite  of  all,  Ireland  answered  Red- 
mond^s  clear  call,  and  fair  disclosure  of  the 
war  records  will  show  that  over  200,000 
Irishmen  fought  under  England's  flag  on 
every  front,  as  brave  as  the  bravest.  Even 
Kitchener,  watching  Irish  volunteering,  was 
forced  to  cry,  '^Magnificent!"  Earl  Grey 
declared  that  Ireland  was  'Hhe  one  bright 
spot  in  the  darkness  of  war,"  and  Gilbert 
Chesterton,  thrilled  by  the  sight  of  Irish 
soldiers  fighting  in  defense  of  their  oppressor, 
wrote  that  '^  England  is  unworthy  to  kiss  the 
hem  of  Ireland's  garment." 

In  May,  1915,  the  blow  fell  that  crushed 

30 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  *^ GERMAN  PLOTS" 

Redmond  and  turned  Ireland's  enthusiasm 
into  bitter  resentment.  As  if  enough  had 
not  been  done  to  anger  and  aHenate,  Cabinet 
changes  forced  NationaHst  Ireland  to  look 
on  helplessly  while  the  leaders  of  the  Ulster 
rebellion  were  elevated  to  high  office.  Bonar 
Law"  w^as  made  Secretary  for  the  Colonies; 
Sir  Frederick  Smith,  Solicitor-General  for 
England;  John  Gordon,  Attorney-General  for 
Ireland;  Walter  Long,  Secretary  of  the  Local 
Government  Board,  and,  worst  of  all,  Carson 
became  Attorney-General  for  England. 

A  w^ave  of  fury  rose  and  broke.  AH  Irishmen 
and  many  Englishmen  felt  that  the  Ulster 
rebellion  was  at  the  heart  of  Germany's  de- 
termination to  launch  the  World  War.  Nor 
can  the  neutral  opinion  of  the  w^orld  hold  any 
other  view.  At  what  point  w^as  Berlin  un- 
justified in  the  befief  that  England,  threat- 
ened by  civil  war,  would  not  dare  to  enter  the 
international  conflict?  There  was  the  bold 
and  repeated  threat  of  rebellion,  the  declara- 
tions of  Carson  and  Bonar  Law  and  other 
Tory  leaders  that  they  preferred  German 
rule  to  Home  Rule;  the  Ulster  purchase  of 
arms  in  Hamburg;  the  resignation  of  General 
Gough  and  his  fifty-seven  officers  to  prove 
that  mutiny  was  rife  in  the  army,  and  then 

4  31 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

the  paralysis  of  government  in  dealing  with 
treason.  Ambassador  Gerard,  Dr.  E.  J. 
Dillon,  one  of  the  best-informed  journalists 
in  Europe,  and  Baron  Beyens,  the  Belgian 
Minister  at  Berhn,  all  have  borne  written 
testimony  that  the  Kaiser  and  his  advisers 
relied  strongly  upon  the  Ulster  Irish  to  tie 
the  hands  of  England.  To  quote  Mr.  Ger- 
ard^s  blunt  phrase,  ^^The  raising  of  the  Ulster 
army  by  Sir  Edward  Carson,  one  of  the  most 
gigantic  political  bluffs  in  all  history,  which 
had  no  more  revolutionary  or  political  signifi- 
cance than  a  torchlight  parade  during  one  of 
our  Presidential  campaigns,  was  reported  by 
the  German  spies  as  a  real  and  serious  revo- 
lutionary movement,  and,  of  course,  it  was 
believed  by  the  Germans  that  Ireland  would 
rise  in  rebellion  the  moment  that  war  was 
declared.'^  Why  not?  With  the  most  pow- 
erful voices  in  England  hailing  the  Kaiser 
as  ^Hhat  great  Protestant  prince''  and  ^^con- 
tinental deliverer,''  what  more  proper  for 
Wilhelm  to  assume  than  that  he  would  be 
welcomed  by  the  English  even  as  William  of 
Orange  and  his  Dutch  following  were  o6ice 
given  the  possessions  of  the  Stuarts?  How 
was  he  to  know  it  as  mere  claptrap,  a  vahd 
move  in  the  political  game  as  played  in  Eng- 

32 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  '^GERMAN  PLOTS"' 

land  and  the  United  States,  where  the  wel- 
fare of  a  nation,  the  aspirations  of  people, 
are  secondary  considerations  in  the  sordid 
struggle  for  place  and  profit  and  privilege? 
Even  as  Ulster  rebels  were  exalted,  so  was 
Redmond  flouted  and  Home  Rule  betrayed. 
The  one  hope  of  the  Irish  was  Redmond's 
balance  of  power,  but  this  was  now  destroyed 
by  the  coalition  that  united  Liberals  and 
Unionists.  With  no  agency  of  pressure  re- 
maining, with  Carson  and  Law  now  part  and 
parcel  of  the  government,  the  great  mass  of 
the  Irish  people  definitely  surrendered  all 
hope  of  Home  Rule  by  constitutional  meth- 
ods, ceased  volunteering,  and  gave  them- 
selves over  to  the  ancient  hatred  of  England. 
Rage  grew  and  events  marched  automatically 
to  that  tragic  Easter  Monday  of  1916  when 
a  handful  of  Dublin  men  pitted  themselves 
against  the  might  of  England  in  one  of  those 
futile  uprisings  that  are  at  once  the  glory 
and  the  despair  of  Ireland.  The  mad  vent- 
ure was  doomed  to  defeat  from  the  very 
first,  and  virtually  every  man  who  took  arms 
offered  his  Ufe  on  the  altar  of  Irish  freedom 
with  no  larger  hope  than  that  his  death  might 
call  the  attention  of  the  world  to  the  Irish 
struggle  for  liberty. 

33 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

On  May  1st  the  last  stronghold  was  taken, 
the  last  rebel  captured,  and  the  English  at 
once  commenced  to  make  wholesale  arrests. 
The  prisoners  sent  to  England  numbered 
1,619,  and  on  May  3d  Mr.  Asquith  an- 
nounced that  Pearse,  Clarke,  and  Mac- 
Donagh  had  been  shot  in  Kilmainham  jail. 
On  May  4th,  Plunkett,  Daly,  O'Hanrahan, 
and  William  Pearse  were  executed;  on  May 
5th,  Major  McBride;  on  May  8th,  Col- 
bert, Mallon,  Ceannt,  and  Heuston;  on  May 
12th,  Connolly  and  MacDermott. 

The  reprisals  had  their  culmination  in  the 
shooting  of  Connolly.  Wounded  during  the 
siege  at  the  post-office,  his  leg  shattered,  he 
was  taken  in  an  ambulance  to  Kilmainham 
jail,  propped  up  in  a  chair,  and  filled  with 
bullets  from  a  firing-squad.  A  little  later 
Ireland  was  treated  to  the  edifying  spectacle 
of  Sir  Frederick  Smith,  the  ^'Ulster  Gallop- 
er,'^  prosecuting  Sir  Roger  Casement  for 
treason. 

Mercy  may  be  sneered  at  in  connection 
with  this  Dublin  rebellion,  but  no  leader  nor 
man  in  the  Ulster  rebellion  had  ever  been 
arrested,  much  less  shot.  Nor  was  precedent 
lacking  for  the  exercise  of  a  wise  clemency. 
There  was  rebellion  in  South  Africa  in  1914, 

34 


PADRAIC    PEARSE 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  ^^ GERMAN  PLOTS'^ 

an  uprising  so  serious  that  for  a  time  decision 
hung  in  the  balance.  Colonel  Maritz,  com- 
manding British  forces  in  Cape  Province; 
General  Be^^ers,  commandant-general  of  the 
Union  Defense  forces,  and  Gen.  Christian 
de  Wet  in  the  Orange  Free  State,  went  boldly 
over  to  the  German  cause  and  for  six  weeks, 
at  the  head  of  10,000  men,  fought  desper- 
ately to  swing  South  Africa  away  from  Eng- 
land. They  were  conquered  and  7,000  rebels 
were  captured,  but  there  were  no  executions, 
a  course  that  had  its  reward  in  South  African 
loyalty. 

However  great  a  failure  militarily,  the 
Dublin  revolt  accomplished  the  one  object 
hoped  by  the  rebels.  Once  again  the  British 
government  was  forced  to  consider  Irish  self- 
government.  In  May  Mr.  Asquith  went  to 
Dublin  and  upon  his  return  announced  that 
the  present  system  of  government  in  Ire- 
land had  ^^ broken  down  hopelessly''  and  that 
the  ^^ highest  Imperial  interests"  demanded 
that  Home  Rule  should  be  brought  into 
immediate  operation  by  consent.  He  stated 
also  that  the  Cabinet,  acting  unanimously, 
had  intrusted  this  delicate  task  to  Lloyd 
George.  Conferences  with  all  leaders  com- 
menced at  once,  and  this  plan  was  agreed 

35 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

upon:  To  place  Home  Rule  in  immediate 
operation,  but  with  temporary  and  provi- 
sional exclusion  of  six  Ulster  counties  until 
Parliament  could  take  up  the  matter  after 
the  war;  that  during  the  transitory  period 
pending  the  permanent  settlement  the  num- 
ber of  Irish  representatives  in  the  Imperial 
Parliament   should  remain  unchanged. 

This  plan  was  made  the  basis  of  a  written 
agreement,  drawn  up  in  the  form  of  a  bill  to 
be  introduced,  and,  upon  the  explicit  under- 
standing that  it  had  the  approval  of  the 
whole  Cabinet  and  would  not  be  changed  in 
any  particular,  Redmond  and  Devlin  gave  it 
their  acceptance  and  went  to  Ireland  to  win 
the  support  of  their  followers.  There  was 
no  question  that  they  took  their  political 
lives  in  their  hands.  The  conference  gave 
six  counties  to  the  Unionists  without  the 
fairness  and  honesty  of  a  vote,  and  carried 
also  a  surrender  of  the  Home  Rule  law  that 
.was  even  then  on  the  statute-books.  The 
sentiment  of  the  south  and  west  was  bitter 
against  exclusion  of  any  kind,  and  as  for 
Ulster  itself,  the  Nationalist  majorities  of 
Tyrone  and  Fermanagh  were  being  cut  off 
from  Home  Rule  and  handed  over  to  Union- 
ist  control   and   domination.     These   coun- 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  ^'GERMAN  PLOTS " 

ties,  and  the  large  Nationalist  votes  in  Derry 
and  Armagh,  rose  furiously  against  exclu- 
sion, but  Redmond  and  Devlin,  by  sheer 
strength  of  personality,  carried  the  day  and 
returned  to  England  with  the  indorsement  of 
the  settlement. 

On  June  29th,  two  days  after  the  Belfast 
conference,  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  rose 
in  the  House  of  Lords  and  repudiated  in 
every  essential  particular  the  agreement  to 
which  his  assent  had  been  pledged.  He  an- 
nounced that  he  would  insist  upon  the  per- 
manent and  arbitrary  exclusion  of  the  six 
Ulster  counties,  and  in  a  speech  remarkable 
for  its  ugly  feeling  characterized  the  Irish 
people  as  a  race  of  rebels  absolutely  un- 
worthy of  any  trust. 

As  a  direct  consequence  of  this  attitude, 
Lloyd  George  sent  for  Redmond  and  in- 
formed him  that  another  Cabinet  council  had 
been  held  and  that  it  had  been  decided  to 
insert  in  the  bill  two  entirely  new  conditions — 
one  providing  for  the  permanent  exclusion  of 
the  Ulster  counties,  and  the  other  cutting  out 
the  provision  for  the  retention  of  Irishmembersin 
their  full  force  at  Westminster  during  the  transi- 
tory period.    Redmond  was  told  flatly  that  this 

decision  was  not  put  before  him  for  the  pur- 

37  _ 


jtliGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HiSTORY 

pose  of  discussion  or  consultation,  as  it  was 
the  intention  of  the  government  to  introduce 
a  bill  containing  these  provisions,  whether 
he  and  his  supporters  approved  it  or  not. 

Redmond  protested  desperately  against 
such  procedure,  pointing  out  that  the  assent 
of  his  supporters  in  Ireland  had  been  ob- 
tained solely  on  the  basis  of  the  agreement, 
and  that  he  had  publicly  pledged  himself  to 
oppose  the  bill  if  an  attempt  were  made  to 
alter  the  proposition  in  any  vital  particular. 
On  the  floor  of  the  House  he  charged  the 
Ministers  with  breaking  their  words  because 
the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  had  threatened 
to  leave  the  Cabinet.  ^^I  had  hoped, '^  he 
said,  ^Hhat  the  pledges  of  British  Ministers 
were  more  valuable  than  the  retention  of  the 
Marquis  of  Lansdowne.^'  Llo^^d  George  ad- 
mitted that  the  heads  of  the  settlement  had 
been  departed  from  in  vital  particulars,  and 
the  matter  ended  with  this  admission.  The 
^^ highest  Imperial  interests"  were  forgotten 
and  Home  Rule  was  tossed  back  into  the 
closet  of  oblivion. 

In  the  House  of  Commons  on  July  31st 
Mr.  Dillon  moved  this  question:  ^^That,  in 
view  of  the  announcement  by  the  govern- 
ment that  they  do  not  intend  to  introduce 

88 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  ^^ GERMAN  PLOTS 


?> 


their  long=promised  bill  to  settle  the  govern- 
ment  of  Ireland,  it  is  vitally  necessary  and 
urgent  that  the  government  should  immedi- 
ately disclose  to  the  House  plans  for  the 
future  government  of  Ireland  during  the 
continuance  of  the  war.'' 

Mr.  Asquith,  in  reply,  announced  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  Unionist  as  Chief  Secretary 
for  Ireland,  a  Mr.  Duke,  who  was  on  record 
as  having  made  this  speech  in  1912:  ^^The 
men  of  Ulster  have  a  moral  right  to  resist, 
and  the  killing  of  men  who  resist  is  not  an 
act  of  oppression — it  is  an  act  of  murder/' 

Mr.  Dillon,  in  bitter  answer,  pointed  out 
that  there  was  '^no  government  in  Ireland 
at  all,  except  an  absolutely  military  govein- 
ment,  acting  under  the  combined  authority 
of  martial  law  and  of  the  Defense  of  the 
Realm  Act,  and,  after  the  three  months  of 
chaos  in  the  government  of  Ireland,  Mr. 
Asquith  proposes  as  his  remedy  merely  the 
setting  up  again  of  the  machinery  which  he 
himself  stated  had  hopelessly  broken  down." 

On  December  5, 1916,  the  Asquith  ministry 
fell  with  a  crash.  The  task  of  forming  a  new 
Cabinet  was  given  by  the  King  to  Bonar 
Law,  who  in  1914  had  solemnly  and  officially 
pledged  the  support  of  the  Unionist  party  to 

"  ~  39 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

the  conspiracy  that  had  for  its  object  the 
overthrow  of  the  supreme  authority  of  the 
Empire.  Bonar  Law  failed  in  his  attempt, 
and  Lloyd  George,  caUed  to  be  Premier, 
formed  a  Cabinet  and  put  Ulster  rebels  at 
his  right  hand  in  places  of  power.  Sir  Ed- 
ward Carson  was  made  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty;  Bonar  Law,  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  and  leader  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons; Sir  Frederick  Smith  was  promoted  to 
be  Attorney-General  for  England;  Sir  James 
Campbell,  a  member  of  the  Ulster  Provi- 
sional government,  was  appointed  Lord  Chief 
Justice  of  Ireland;  Sir  James  Craig,  chief  of 
staff  of  the  Ulster  army.  Treasurer  of  his 
Majesty's  Household;  John  Gordon,  another 
micmber  of  the  Ulster  Provisional  govern- 
ment, judge  of  the  High  Court  of  Justice, 
and  Walter  Long,  Irish  adviser  to  the  War 
Cabinet.  For  good  measure,  three  enthu- 
siastic supporters  of  the  Ulster  rebellion — 
Earl  Curzon,  Lord  Milner,  and  Austen 
Chamberlain — were  raised  to  highest  author- 
ity; and  Mr.  Balfour,  Ireland's  ancient  ene- 
my, was  retained  as  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs. 

It  is  impossible  in  this,  as  in  the  events  that 
preceded  it,  to  escape  the  conviction  that 

40 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  '^GERMAN  PLOTS '' 

Lloyd  George  swallowed  the  majority  of 
those  principles  upon  which  he  had  risen  to 
place  and  power.  As  no  other  man  in  Eng- 
land, he  was  committed  to  Home  Rule,  while 
every  protestation  of  his  political  life  aligned 
him  unalterably  against  the  men  now  chosen 
by  him  as  his  associates.  Time  and  again 
he  had  branded  the  Ulster  leaders  as  rebels 
and  traitors,  while  their  abuse  of  him  had 
been  vicious  to  the  last  degree.  Curzon,  with 
his  record  in  India,  and  Milner,  for  his  mer- 
ciless administration  in  South  Africa,  were 
hated  by  all  English  liberals,  and  not  a  Union- 
ist in  the  new  Cabinet  but  was  known  to  be 
essentially  undemocratic  and  a  bitter  foe  to 
every  social  reform,  their  utterances  recalling 
the  solemn  dicta  of  the  Bourbons. 

There  is  this  to  be  pleaded  in  extenuation, 
however,  if  not  justification.  Real  as  Mr. 
Asquith's  values  were  in  time  of  peace,  he 
was  not  the  type  of  man  for  a  war  Premier. 
Lloyd  George  felt  this,  and  believed  that  he 
himself  was  the  most  adequate  person  for 
the  place.  This  does  not  necessarily  imply 
egotism,  but  might  well  denote  an  honest 
self-confidence  born  of  past  performance.  In 
any  event,  Lloyd  George  assumed  that  the 
best   interests   of   England   and   the   Allies 

41 


HIGH   LIGHTS   OF   IRISH   HISTORY 

demanded  the  elimination  of  Mr.  Asquith, 
and  as  this  could  not  be  brought  about  by 
the  aid  of  Liberals,  for  the  majority  loved 
Mr.  Asquith  and  could  not  be  won  away 
from  loyalty,  the  only  recourse  was  an  alli- 
ance with  the  Tories.  Such  an  alliance,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  meant  a  clean-cut  break 
with  the  Irish  party,  the  Liberals,  and  the 
Labor  party,  his  old  friends  and  the  forces 
responsible  for  his  rise,  but  doubtless  he 
argued  that  this  price,  to  be  paid  personally, 
after  all,  was  not  too  high  for  the  war  suc- 
cess that  he  felt  confident  would  be  won  by 
the  superior  energy  and  initiative  of  his 
leadership.  Whatever  the  motive,  the  trade 
took  place,  and  Lloyd  George,  as  Premier, 
took  the  Tories  selected  for  him  by  the 
Unionist  party,  and  recanted  many  of  the 
pledges  and  beliefs  that  had  formerly  dom- 
inated his  hfe.  Carson,  Milner,  Curzon,  and 
Law,  for  instance,  constituted  a  majority  of 
four  in  the  War  Council  of  six,  and  their 
presence  served  plain  notice  upon  Ireland 
that  Ulster  was  in  the  ascendant  and  Home 
Rule  a  dead  issue. 

Until  this  time  the  Sinn  Fein  had  been 
utterly  without  political  power,  existing  only 
as  a  force  for  the  revival  of  the  Irish  language. 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  ^'GERMAN  PLOTS 


)> 


industries,  and  national  spirit,  although  pro- 
testing always  against  the  folly  and  futility 
of  Redmond's  ^'appeal  to  English  justice/' 
Up  to  1916  Sinn  Fein  had  ventured  only  one 
candidate,  and  his  defeat  had  been  over- 
whelming. But  now,  as  the  people  of  Ire- 
land saw  the  Nationalists  despised  and  de- 
rided, and  as  they  contrasted  the  power  and 
glory  of  the  Ulster  rebels  with  the  execu- 
tions and  quicklime  burials  of  the  Dublin 
revolutionists,  they  turned  away  from  the 
party  of  Redmond  definitely  and  forever, 
and  gave  whole-hearted,  almost  fanatical, 
allegiance  to  Sinn  Fein  and  its  demand  for 
an  Irish  republic. 

Unhappy  Redmond!  Forty  years  of  un- 
faltering devotion  to  a  cause,  and  at  the  end 
a  great  loneliness,  a  distrust  so  savage  as  to 
border  on  the  intensity  of  hate.  Not  death 
in  the  glory  of  the  fight,  with  love  and  loyalty 
at  hand  to  carve  his  name  in  the  heart  of 
posterity,  but  miserably  ambushed  by  a 
trick,  undone  by  his  own  faith  and  honor, 
led  by  his  own  idealism  into  a  position  that 
made  him  seem  a  traitor,  or  what  is  worse 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Irish,  a  fool.  His  spirit 
sickened  to  its  death  even  as  the  spirit  of 
Parnell  had  died  in  another  day,  and  he 

43 


HIGH   LIGHTS  OF   IRISH   HISTORY 

walked  out  of  health  to  the  grave  without 
a  sigh  or  backward  glance.  A  great  man, 
and  never  so  great  as  in  the  hour  when  he 
risked* himself  and  his  country  on  Enghsh 
faith  that  civilization  might  be  saved. 

It  remained  for  America's  entry  into  the 
World  War  to  bring  the  Irish  question  back 
into  the  realm  of  ^'practical  politics.''  There 
were  England's  necessities  in  the  matter  of 
food  and  money  to  be  considered,  and,  what 
was  even  more  important,  the  unity  of 
thought,  sympathy,  and  action  between  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States  that  had  to  be 
brought  about  in  the  interest  of  military  suc- 
cess. A  division,  or  even  less  than  100  per 
cent,  partnership,  was  bound  to  be  hurtful, 
if  not  fatal.  From  our  standpoint,  it  was 
evil  enough  that  Ireland  had  been  driven 
back  into  her  old  bitterness  by  England's 
policies,  but  this  feeling  gained  in  intensity 
from  the  natural  expectation  that  Americans 
of  Irish  blood  and  descent  would  remember 
these  policies  in  the  hour  when  their  adopted 
country  called  upon  them  to  fight  side  by 
side  with  EngUshmen  for  ^^the  freedom  of 
small  peoples."  In  those  first  days  it  was 
the  volunteer  method  that  we  were  relying 
upon,  and  what  with  the  great  mass  of  Ger- 

44 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  ^^  GERMAN  PLOTS ^* 

man-speaking  people  in  our  midst,  all  racial 
prejudices  assumed  important  proportions. 
It  was  plain  to  be  seen,  therefore,  that  the 
Irish  question  had  some  very  vital  American 
aspects,  and  that  its  settlement  was  im- 
measurably the  largest  contribution  that 
England  could  make  to  the  common  cause. 
Lloyd  George  was  not  lacking  in  apprecia- 
tion of  the  fact  that  there  were  15,000,000  of 
Irish  blood  or  descent  in  the  United  States, 
powerful  in  war  and  equally  powerful  in  poli- 
tics, and,  reaching  down  into  the  closet  of 
forgotten  things,  he  drew  up  the  tattered 
Irish  question.  In  a  letter  to  John  Red- 
mond, under  date  of  April  27th,  he  asserted 
his  deep  and  continuing  interest  in  Ireland, 
and  proposed  an  Irish  convention,  promising 
that  if  a  substantial  majority  agreed  upon  a 
plan  of  Home  Rule,  the  English  government 
would  legalize  the  agreement  by  statute. 
The  Sinn  Fein  jeeringly  refused  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  proposition,  pointing  to 
the  suspension  of  the  Home  Rule  law  as  an 
evidence  of  English  faith,  but  Redmond  and 
his  party  grasped  at  the  chance,  feeling  tha1> 
the  pressure  of  Irish- American  sentiment  and 
President^  Wilson's  well-known  sympathy 
with  Ireland^s  cause  would  induce  England 

45 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

to  grant  the  justice  so  long  denied.  The 
convention  was  called  in  due  course — even 
without  Sinn  Fein  participation  it  was  truly 
representative — and,  after  a  year  of  discus- 
sion and  deliberation,  a  weak  Home  Rule 
plan  was  agreed  upon  b}'  all  but  nineteen 
Ulster  Unionists,  Protestant  prelates  voting 
with  Catholic  Nationalists  for  the  adoption 
of  the  majority  report.  The  body  reported 
on  April  5,  1918,  and  Lloyd  George  straight- 
way held  that  the  dissenting  votes  of  the 
nineteen  Ulster  politicians  indicated  a  lack 
of  '^substantial  agreement, '^  and  then  an- 
nounced that  Ireland's  case  would  thereafter 
be  treated  as  a  purely  British  question. 

What  more  natural?  America  had  been 
in  the  war  for  a  year,  the  loans  asked  by 
England  had  been  made,  fully  15  per  cent, 
of  the  American  fighting  force  was  Irish  as 
to  ancestry,  the  Irish  of  the  United  States 
had  put  aside  prejudices  in  devotion  to  the 
American  cause,  so  that  the  only  irreconcil- 
ables  left  to  be  considered  were  his  own  as- 
sociates, such  as  Carson,  Bonar  Law,  and 
Smith. 

Yet  still  another  act  remained  to  be  played 
in  the  drama  of  bitterness.  On  April  9th, 
Lloyd  George  announced  that  the  conscrip- 

46 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  ^'GERMAN  PLOTS'' 

tion  clause  in  the  man-power  bill  would  be 
applied  to  Ireland,  but  that  a  generous  self- 
government  measure  would  also  be  framed 
at  once.  He  stated  conclusively,  however, 
that  conscription  and  Home  Rule  did  not  go 
together;  they  were  separate  and  each  must 
stand  on  its  own  merits.  The  furious  aston- 
ishment of  the  Irish  members  broke  all  bounds. 
AVhy  not  Home  Rule  first,  they  asked,  then 
the  request  for  conscription,  thus  permitting 
the  Irish  a  voice  in  a  decision  having  to  do 
with  life  and  death?  England  had  not 
dared  to  attempt  an  arbitrary  application  of 
the  man-power  bill  to  Australia,  Canada,  or 
South  Africa,  the  proposition  being  sub- 
mitted to  the  vote  of  the  people  in  all  three 
countries,  the  one  sane,  decent  course  where 
free  men  were  involved.  Instead  of  this,  the 
English  government,  by  right  of  its  might, 
had  resolved  to  dragoon  Irishmen  to  fight 
for  the  one  country  responsible  for  their 
slavery,  after  which  it  would  repudiate  its 
Home  Rule  pledge  just  as  it  had  repudiated 
aU  the  others. 

Mr.  Asquith,  in  moderate,  but  unmistak- 
able terms,  registered  his  belief  that  the  gov- 
ernment was  committing  a  fatal  blunder,  and 
begged  that  Irish  conscription  be  delayed 

5  47 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF   IRISH  HISTORY 

until  the  Home  Rule  measure  should  be 
framed  and  passed.  The  representatives  of 
labor  supported  the  suggestion  vigorously, 
and  expressed  intense  dissatisfaction  when 
the  government  refused  to  give  any  defi- 
nite assurance  as  to  its  intentions  with 
respect  to  Home  Rule.  Lloyd  George,  how- 
ever, pressed  forward  stubbornly  and  all  Ire- 
land massed  to  resist.  Nationalists  and  Sinn 
Fein  joining  for  the  campaign.  On  April 
23d  there  was  a  workless  day  as  an  expres- 
sion of  popular  revolt,  and  at  the  same  time 
Carson,  in  Belfast,  launched  a  bitter  assault 
against  Lloyd  George,  declaring  that  Ulster, 
while  supporting  conscription,  would  stop  at 
nothing  in  its  resistance  to  a  Home  Rule  bill. 
The  Prime  Minister,  defying  the  storm, 
drove  through  the  measure,  but  for  some  rea- 
son changed  his  mind  at  the  last  moment  and 
failed  to  send  it  to  the  King  for  signature. 
By  the  middle  of  May  it  was  confidently 
assumed  that  conscription  for  Ireland  was 
dead,  while  Carson's  threats  were  considered 
to  have  killed  the  Home  Rule  proposition. 
On  May  17th,  like  a  bolt  from  the  blue, 
Dublin  Castle  issued  a  proclamation  de- 
claring the  discovery  of  a  vast  German 
plot.    De  Valera,  Arthur  Griffith,  and  scores 

48 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  '^GERMAN  PLOTS'' 

of  Sinn  Fein  leaders  were  caught  in  the  wide 
sweep  of  a  military  dragnet  and  the  prison- 
ers, batch  after  batch,  were  sent  to  Eng- 
land to  be  confined  ^^  during  the  King's 
pleasure."  These  arrests  and  deportations 
were  a  revival  of  the  methods  of  1881,  when 
the  English  Parliament  gave  despotic  power 
to  Forster  in  a  desperate  endeavor  to  crush 
the  Land  League. 

As  the  days  passed,  without  either  arraign- 
ment or  trial  of  any  of  the  prisoners,  a  general 
demand  arose  that  some  proof  of  the  plot  be 
given  to  the  people.  The  Irish  National- 
ists, the  Labor  party  as  a  whole,  many  Lib- 
erals, and  a  large  portion  of  the  press  joined 
in  the  insistence  that  evidence  be  produced, 
but  the  government  stood  firm  in  its  silence. 
In  this  connection,  nothing  is  more  significant 
than  the  statement  of  Lord  Wimboume, 
General  French's  predecessor  as  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant of  Ireland,  that  throughout  his  regime 
he  had  discovered  no  sign  of  the  alleged  plot, 
and  asserting  his  belief  that  satisfactory  evi- 
dence of  its  existence  could  not  be  produced. 

To  finish  this  portion  of  the  story,  it  may 

be  stated  that  the  Sinn  Fein  men  and  women 

remained  in  English  prisons  from  May,  1918, 

until   March,    1919,    without   arraignment, 

49 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

without  the  production  of  one  single  piece  of 
evidence  against  them,  and  without  right  of 
counsel.  In  March,  1919,  quietly  as  might 
be,  the  English  government  began  releasing 
the  prisoners  in  small  batches. 

On  June  22d  conscription  and  Home  RuIg 
•alike  were  formal^  abandoned,  despite  Bonar 
Law^s  initial  statement  that  the  government 
would  '^  stand  or  faU  by  conscription '^  and 
the  equally  solemn  pledge  of  Lloyd  George 
that  a  Home  Rule  bill  would  be  passed.  So 
the  tragedy  ran  its  course  to  the  elections  in 
December,  1918.  The  Sinn  Fein  put  before 
the  people  the  following  platform: 

First,  to  demand  as  a  minimum  the  establishment 
of  an  Independent  Irish  RepubUc,  and  the  total  sepa- 
ration of  Ireland  from  the  political  system  known  as 
the  British  Empire.  And  as  a  means  toward  the 
achievement  of  this  object: 

(a)  That  all  Nationalists  Members  of  Parliament 
should  be  pledged  not  to  attend  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. 

(6)  To  place  all  reliance  for  the  future  of  Ireland  on 
*'the  armed  young  men  of  Ireland/'  and  an  arnied 
rising  against  the  power  of  the  British  Empire;  or, 
failing  this, 

(c)  On  an  appeal  to  the  Peace  Conference. 

The  Irish  party  went  before  the  people 
with  its  wonderful  record  of  achievement  in 

50 


BROKEN  PLEDGES  OR  ^^ GERMAN  PLOTS'^ 

forty  years  of  hard  fighting,  but  against  this 
record  was  the  inescapable  fact  that  Home 
Rule,  its  fundamental  objective,  had  not  been 
won.  It  had  gained  material  prosperity  for 
the  land,  but  what  was  that  to  a  people  so  in 
love  with  freedom  that  every  year  in  seven 
centuries  had  seen  them  die  for  it! 

There  was  no  question  as  to  the  result 
from  the  very  first.  The  Sinn  Fein  victoiy 
was  overwhelming.  Out  of  thirty-two  coun- 
ties in  Ireland,  its  candidates  ran  absolutely 
unopposed  in  twenty-two.  In  Ulster  it  swept 
Donegal,  Monaghan,  and  Cavan,  won  ma- 
jorities in  Fermanagh  and  Tyrone,  carried 
the  Unionist  stronghold,  Derry  City,  and 
lost  only  in  Down,  Derry,  Armagh,  and 
Antrim.  Out  of  101  members,  the  Sinn  Fein 
won  73,  the  Nationalists  7,  and  the  Union- 
ists 21. 

In  early  January  Lloyd  George  announced 
the  composition  of  his  new  ministry.  Bonar 
Law  was  raised  to  be  Lord  Privy  Seal 
and  leader  in  the  House  of  Commons;  Sir 
Frederick  E.  Smith  received  promotion  to 
Lord  High  Chancellor;  Austen  Chamberlain 
became  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer;  Earl 
Curzon,  the  President  of  the  Council  and 
leader  in  the  House  of  Lords;   and  Walter 

51 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Long,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty.  Lord 
Milner  was  transferred  to  be  Secretary  for 
the  Colonies;  Mr.  Balfour  remained  Secre- 
tary of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  a  Scotchman^ 
Ian  MacPherson,  went  to  Ireland  as  Chief 
Secretary.  Ulster  control  of  England  and 
Ireland  was  now  complete. 

On  January  21st  the  first  session  of  the 
Irish  Parliament  was  held  in  Dublin,  and  its 
first  call  was  to  the  free  nations  of  the  world 
to  support  the  Irish  republic  by  recognizing 
Ireland's  national  status.  Laughable,  per- 
haps, but  not  more  so  than  the  Americans 
that  met  in  Faneuil  Hall  or  the  first  session 
of  the  Continental  Congress  in  the  small 
brick  building  of  the  Carpenters'  Association 
in  Philadelphia.  Some  young  and  reckless, 
some  old  and  academic,  but  for  the  most 
part  a  gathering  of  very  intense  patriots  with 
sanely  constructive  ideas  about  finance,  edu- 
cation, economics,  industry,  merchant  ma- 
rine, foreign  trade — aU,  however,  a  unit  in 
conviction  as  to  the  justice  and  necessity  of 
Ireland's  independence. 

So  ends  the  ^'Home  Rule"  chapter  in 
Irish  history. 


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Chapter  III 
Five  Centuries  of  Irish  War 

MUCH  has  been  made,  and  will  be  made, 
of  the  charge  that  the  Dublin  revolt  of 
1916  was  part  and  parcel  of  German  intrigue, 
and  that  the  leaders  received  money  and 
arms  from  Germany.  The  object,  of  course, 
is  to  prejudice  the  Allies  and  the  United  States 
against  the  Irish  cause  by  smearing  it  with 
the  blood  and  grime  of  Prussianism.  Even 
if  the  truth  of  the  claim  be  granted,  what 
bearing  have  the  happenings  of  1916  upon 
the  betrayal  of  Home  Rule  in  1914?  If 
Connolly  and  Pearse  were  indeed  German 
agents  in  German  pay,  the  fact  stands  clear 
that  the  rebels  at  no  time  numbered  more 
than  1,000  men,  the  citizens  of  Dublin  refus- 
ing to  rise  and  the  rest  of  Ireland  aiding  and 
abetting  the  rebellion  in  no  perceptible 
degree.  Are  4,000,000  to  be  punished  for 
the  act  of  1,000?  Also,  against  Connolly's 
'^rebels''   may  be   placed   those   heroes   of 

53     - 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Munster  and  Dublin  who  first  dared  the 
shore  at  Gallipoli,  forcing  a  foothold  in  the 
face  of  a  Turkish  fire  that  killed  700  out  of 
the  1,000  that  attacked. 

Charges  of  'traitorous  alliances  with  Ger- 
many/^ for  that  matter,  come  with  poor 
grace  from  a  government  that  honored 
Carson,  Craig,  Chambers,  Gordon,  and 
Moore,  and  which  even  to-day  has  Bonar 
Law,  Walter  Long,  and  Sir  Frederick 
Smith  in  its  highest  places.  As  has  been 
pointed  out,  these  men  rebelled  against  the 
authority  of  the  Empire  in  1914,  seduced  the 
army  from  its  allegiance,  openly  declared 
that  they  preferred  German  rule  to  Home 
Rule,  appealed  to  'Hhat  great  Protestant 
prince,'^  the  Kaiser,  and  secured  arms  from 
Germany,  all  constituting  overt  treason  that 
undoubtedly  helped  to  precipitate  the  World 
War  by  convincing  Berlin  that  England 
would  not  and  could  not  intervene.  In  ad- 
dition, there  is  England's  war  treatment  of 
Ireland  to  be  considered;  the  repudiation  of 
Home  Rule,  insults  and  malignities,  to  use 
Lloyd  George's  phrase,  wholesale  arrests  and 
deportations,  and  the  arrogant  attempt  at 
conscription  without  appeal  to  the  people. 
Taking  all  these  thing  into  account,  fairness 

54 


FIVE  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

will  find  it  somewhat  difficult  to  censure  and 
hate,  even  if  it  were  proved  conclusively 
that  1,000  Irish  extremists  did  indeed  ask 
aid  of  Germany,  England's  enemy. 

Sinn  Fein,  however,  denies  the  charge  of 
a  ^^ German  alliance^'  bitterly  and  absolutely. 
Its  leaders  defy  the  English  government  to 
produce  any  credible  evidence  that  a  single 
German  dollar  or  German  rifle  figured  in  the 
Dublin  revolt,  or  that  the  Irish  republican 
movement  ever  received  assistance  of  any 
kind  from  any  German  source.  Roger  Case- 
ment, his  mind  turned  by  ill  health  and  in- 
justice, acted  merely  as  an  individual  in  his 
dealings  with  Berlin,  and  published  letters 
show  plainly  that  the  Sinn  Fein  leaders  did 
not  want  him  in  Ireland,  and  spent  most  of 
the  time  trying  to  keep  Casement  in  the 
dark  as  to  their  plans,  fearful  always  of  his 
erratic  and  hair-trigger  co-operation. 

Brushing  aside  all  talk  of  ^^  German  in- 
trigue,'^ and  even  contemptuously  ignoring 
British  '^malignities''  in  connection  with  re- 
cruiting, Sinn  Fein  strikes  down  to  the  fun- 
damentals of  the  case,  and  declares  the 
Dublin  uprising  a  valid  continuation  of  Ire- 
land's '^ unbroken  tradition" — merely  an- 
other revolt  added  to  the  seven  centuries 


5o 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

of  Irish  struggle  against  the  Enghsh  attempt 
at  conquest  and  subjugation.  The  British 
plaint  that  ^^ Ireland  has  not  been  loyal"  is 
met  by  the  answer  that  disloyalty  presup- 
poses loyalty,  allegiance  assumes  subjection, 
and  that  never  in  history  has  Ireland  pledged 
loyalty  or  given  allegiance  to  England  or 
England's  rulers.  For  seven  hundred  years, 
they  say,  the  Irish  heart  has  echoed  to  the 
cry  that  ^'England's  extremity  is  Ireland's 
opportunity,"  and  even  as  she  has  fought 
herself,  so  has  Ireland  never  failed  to  make 
alliance  with  Britain's  foes.  French,  Dutch, 
Spanish,  and  Itahan  alike  have  sent  fleets 
and  armies  at  the  request  of  Irish  rebels,  and 
it  is  a  commonplace  of  Irish  pohcy  that  any 
enemy  of  England  is  Ireland's  friend. 

History  bears  out  this  claim  in  every  par- 
ticular and  to  the  last  bloody  detail.  The 
supreme  tragedy  of  a  race  that  has  known 
nothing  but  tragedies  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
record  of  Ireland's  long  struggle  for  freedom 
has  been  written  down  by  enemy  hands  as 
seen  by  enemy  eyes.  As  far  back  as  1599, 
Lord  Essex  wrote  to  Queen  Elizabeth, 
'^'Twere  as  well  for  our  credit  that  we  alone 
had  the  exposition  of  our  quarrel  with  this 
people,  and  not  they  also,"  and  this  policy 

56 


FIVE  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

of  suppression  and  misrepresentation  has 
been  followed  faithfully  by  every  English 
government  since  the  Virgin  Queen.  The 
world  to-day  knows  next  to  nothing  of  Irish 
history,  and  even  the  little  that  is  known  has 
been  learned  from  English  sources.  Lacking 
the  fuU  truth,  the  world  has  lacked  full  sym- 
pathy; that  which  should  have  been  eternally 
vivid  became  permanently  clouded,  and  love 
of  Uberty  took  on  the  drab  colors  of  rioting, 
lawlessness,  and  ingratitude.  Here  and  there, 
however,  the  flame  of  truth  has  blazed  high 
above  the  wall  of  concealment,  and  even  the 
pages  of  such  English  writers  as  Macaulay, 
Lecky,  Green,  and  Froude,  when  put  to- 
gether, paint  well  a  people  unable  to  know 
happiness  while  their  bodies  know  a  fetter. 
The  full  picture  shows  that  the  Irish  have 
never  ceased  to  look  upon  the  English  as 
invaders;  have  never  ceased  to  regard  Eng- 
lish rule  as  slavery.  Virtually  every  genera- 
tion since  1195  has  expressed  this  deep  feeling 
in  war  and  insurrection,  defeat  seeming  only  to 
feed  and  strengthen  the  passion  for  Uberty. 
This  is  what  the  world  has  never  understood 
and  what  England  cannot  understand.  After 
seven  hundred  years  of  defeat  the  English 
naturally  expect  submission,  and  continued 

57 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

resistance  takes  on  the  color  of  mere  stub- 
bornness. Also,  when  enormous  superiori- 
ties in  size  and  resources  make  the  issue  cer- 
tain, continued  rebellion  savors  of  insanity 
to  them.  People  of  any  intelligence,  they 
argue,  would  submit  to  the  inevitable  and 
accept  the  beneficences  of  peace.  This  deep 
conviction  of  Irish  unintelligence  is  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  English  ruling-class  attitude 
toward  Ireland. 

It  cannot  be  seen — it  will  not  be  seen — that 
the  Irishman  cares  nothing  for  safety,  com- 
fort, or  prosperity  unless  these  be  the  result 
of  freedom;  but  even  if  freedom  means  pov- 
erty, privation,  and  famine,  still  does  he 
insist  on  having  it.  The  Gael  does  not  find 
his  death  in  the  grave,  but  in  the  clank  of  a 
chain;  with  him  libert}^  is  not  an  intellectual 
process,  but  a  passion;  naturally  enough, 
since  existence  is  valueless  to  him  without 
liberty,  no  chance  for  liberty  is  too  hazard- 
ous to  keep  him  from  staking  his  existence 
on  it.  Viewed  from  the  English  standpoint, 
therefore,  the  Irish  are  unreasonable  and  in- 
credible; looked  at,  however,  in  the  light  of 
seven  centuries  of  struggle  for  the  freedom 
that  is  more  to  them  than  love  of  life  or  fear 
of  death,  the  Irish  are  perfectly  intelUgible. 

58 


FIVE  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

Before  taking  up  the  dramatic  high  Ughts 
of  this  struggle,  so  vital  to  full  American 
understanding  of  the  Irish  question,  a  brief 
word  as  to  beginnings  may  not  be  amiss. 
Ireland  was  a  federated  nation  of  four  king- 
doms, with  an  ard-ri  (high  king)  and  a  tri- 
ennial Parliament,  at  a  time  when  England 
was  a  Roman  colony  and  France  a  welter 
of  small  tribal  powers.  The  Seanchus  Mor, 
or  Great  Book  of  Laws,  gave  organized  jus- 
tice to  Ireland  before  the  English  and  the 
French  had  risen  above  the  oral  judgment  of 
individual  chieftains.  Irish  scholarship  ush- 
ered in  the  dawn  of  universal  learning,  for 
it  was  from  the  Irish  monasteries  that  the 
stream  of  preachers  and  teachers  poured  forth 
that  illumined  the  savage  darkness  of  early 
England  and  western  Europe.  A  free  peo- 
ple, a  strong,  proud  people,  the  Irish  lived 
by  and  to  themselves  for  a  thousand  years 
before  foreign  aggression  threatened  their  an- 
cient liberties. 

It  was  in  795  that  Ireland  suffered  its  first 
invasion.  The  Danes,  swarming  down  from 
Jutland,  Norway,  and  Sweden,  laid  waste 
the  Irish  coast  and  builded  strong  fortresses 
on  the  ruins  of  castle  and  cathedral.  Aside 
from  the  fact  of  invasion,  the  religious  nature 

59 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

of  the  struggle  gave  it  an  added  intensity. 
The  Irish  stood  for  the  one  God  against 
Norse  mythology,  and  the  pages  of  the  Four 
Masters  are  filled  with  the  heroism  of  ''kings 
and  chieftains,  lords  and  toparchs/^  and  the 
courage  of  bishops  and  abbots  who  ''suffered 
martyrdom  for  the  sake  of  Christ/^  For 
two  hundred  years  the  battle  raged,  but  in 
1014,  on  the  wild  field  of  Clontarf,  Brian  and 
Malachi  crushed  the  Danish  hosts  decisively 
and  drove  the  raven  banner  from  their 
shores.  Even  as  Sigurd  and  Si  trie  fled  in 
their  long  ships,  the  English  were  suffering 
the  defeat  that  gave  the  nation  a  line  of 
Danish  kings. 

Saxon  followed  Dane  on  the  English  throne. 
William  the  Conqueror  then  won  at  Hastings, 
but  it  was  not  until  Henry  II  that  the  preda- 
tory Norman- Angevin  spirit  turned  its  atten- 
tion to  Ireland  and  commenced  the  deadly 
grapple  that  has  never  known  an  end. 

In  1169  Strongbow,  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
landed  the  first  of  the  Anglo-Norman  hosts 
to  touch  Irish  soil,  and  two  years  later  Henry 
himseE  came  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  10,000. 
While  from  that  day  to  this  the  EngHsh  have 
never  been  driven  out  of  Ireland,  at  no  time 

have  the  Irish  ever  admitted  conquest,  years 

60 


FIVE   CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

of  peace  being  no  more  than  breathing-spells 
to  gain  new  strength  for  the  next  struggle. 
Grim  and  terrible  were  these  wars.  The 
courage  of  the  Irish  was  of  a  quality  that 
wrung  admiration  even  from  the  fierce  Nor- 
mans. Clad  only  in  saffron  shirts,  armed 
poorly  with  skeans  and  ashen  stakes,  they 
hurled  themselves  undauntedly  against  the 
armor,  lances,  and  great  swords  of  the  in- 
vaders. Froissart,  commenting  upon  this, 
remarks:  ^^ Ireland  is  one  of  the  yvell  coun- 
tries of  the  world  to  make  war  upon,  for  a 
man  of  arms,  beyng  never  so  well  horsed, 
and  ron  as  fast  as  he  can,  the  Yrishhemenn 
wiU  ryn  abote  as  fast  as  he,  and  overtake 
hjnn,  yea,  and  leap  up  upon  his  horse  behynde 
him  and  drawe  hym  from  his  horse. '' 

Henry  knew  his  successes  in  Munster  and 
Leinster,  but  Ulster  and  Connaught  beat  him 
back.  The  expeditions  of  J.ohn  failed  equally, 
and  under  Edward  II  there  hung  a  bloody 
moment  when  it  seemed  that  the  English 
invasion  might  be  crushed  decisively. 
Aroused  by  the  victories  of  the  Bruces,  the 
Irish  of  Ulster  suggested  an  alliance,  and  the 
great  Robert  sent  over  his  brother  Edward 
with  6,000  hardy  Scots  behind  him.  The 
Prince  of  Tyrone  joined  forces  with  him,  but 

61 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

after  three  years  of  victory  Scotch  and  Irish 
went  down  to  defeat,  the  body  of  Bruce  was 
cut  into  bits,  and  the  head  went  forward  in 
salt  to  King  Edward  as  a  sign  of  peace. 
Even  so,  the  Enghsh  hold  was  frail,  the 
British  soldiery  huddling  in  a  few  fortified 
towns,  and  Richard  II  resolved  upon  com- 
plete conquest.  First  in  1394,  with  an  army 
of  34,000,  and  again  in  1399,  he  launched 
great  offensives,  but  the  indomitable  Mac- 
Mm*rough,  King  of  Leinster,  scattered  Rich- 
ard's hosts  to  the  winds  and  sent  him  home 
to  lose  his  crown. 

Came  the  Henrys — Fourth,  Fifth,  and 
Sixth — and  then  Edward,  third  of  his  name, 
and  each  knew  his  disasters  in  connection 
with  the  Irish  invasion.  When  Henry  VIII 
ascended  the  throne,  to  use  the  words  of 
Green,  English  sovereignty  in  Ireland  was  a 
''mere  phantom  of  rule.''  It  was  at  this 
point,  also,  that  there  was  strikingly  evi- 
denced a  curious  phenomenon  that  has 
remained  to  stand  out  as  the  most  marked 
characteristic  of  the  Irish.  Even  as  the 
Gael  had  assimilated  the  Northmen,  so  did 
the  race  '^Irishize^'  Angle  and  Norman. 
Despite  the  terrific  Statute  of  Kilkenny,  that 
laid  down  the  death  penalty  for  marriage 

62 


FIVE   CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

with  the  Irish,  or  adoption  of  customs  or  cos- 
tumes, the  Geraldines,  the  Burgos,  the  Fitz- 
patricks,  the  Butlers,  and  the  de  la  Poers  had 
become '  ^  more  Irish  than  the  Irish' '  and  equally 
bitter  in  their  hatred  of  English  tyranny. 

In  1534,  under  the  leadership  of  the  Geral- 
dines, these  nobles  defied  the  power  of  Henry 
VII,  but  artillery — new  to  Irish  warfare — 
crushed  the  revolt.  The  whole  latter  half 
of  Henry's  reign  was  given  over  to  Irish  con- 
quest, and  his  strength,  joined  with  justice 
and  wisdom,  brought  the  island  nearer  to 
surrender  than  ever  before.  Henr^^,  how- 
ever, lost  all  b}'  his  ruthless  attempt  to 
crush  Catholicism,  for  the  Irish,  without 
regard  to  faction,  united  again  as  a  nation  to 
fight  for  the  faith  of  St.  Patrick.  Edward 
VI,  continuing  the  work,  proclaimed  Protes- 
tant doctrine  in  Ireland,  and  went  beyond 
the  Statute  of  Kilkenny  with  futile  laws 
designed  to  save  English  colonists  from  assim- 
ilation by  the  Gael. 

Elizabeth,  inheriting  revolt,  also  had  the 
misfortune  to  see  a  statesman  and  great  gen- 
eral rise  to  lordship  over  the  Irish.  Shane 
O'Neill,  Earl  of  Tyrone,  called  Ulster  to  arms 
in  1551,  and  for  sixteen  years  his  craft  made 
a  mock  of  English  compromises,  while  his 

6  63 


HIGH   LIGHTS   OF   IRISH   HISTORY 

courage  and  genius  smote  down  army  after 
army.  Domestic  malice,  rather  than  Eng- 
lish arms,  brought  him  ruin  and  death,  but 
again  in  1579  the  Geraldines  rose  to  carry  on 
the  Irish  tradition.  Aid  was  begged  from 
Spain  and  Italy,  but  it  was  received  in  such 
small  measure  that  the  earls  went  down  to 
defeat  in  1583,  the  great  Desmond  fleeing  to 
the  hills  to  be  kiUed  like  a  homeless  dog  as  he 
hid  in  a  glen. 

From  north  to  south  the  victors  marched, 
slaying  and  ravaging  until  the  land  lay  still 
and  barren.  It  did  not  seem  possible  that  a 
vestige  of  resistance  could  be  left,  for,  as 
Edmund  Spenser  wrote,  ^Hhe  people  were 
brought  to  such  wretchedness  as  that  any 
stony  hart  would  have  rued  the  same.  Out 
of  every  corner  of  the  woods  and  glynnes 
they  came  creeping  forth  upon  their  hands, 
for  their  legges  could  not  bear  them;  they 
looked  like  anatomies  of  death;  they  spake 
like  ghosts  crying  out  of  their  graves,  and  if 
they  found  a  plot  of  watercresses  or  sham- 
rocks there  they  flocked  to  a  feast  for  the 
time;  that  in  short  space  of  time  there  were 
almost  no  people  left,  and  a  most  populous 
and  plentiful  country  suddainely  left  voide  of 
man  and  beaste.'^ 

64 


FIVE   CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

Essex,  writing  to  Elizabeth  in  his  usual 
crafty  vein,  asked  whether  she  chose  to  ^^  suf- 
fer this  people  to  inhabit  here  for  their  rent 
or  extirpate  them/^  Doubtless  the  queen 
ordered  the  latter  course,  and  in  the  cam- 
paign of  extermination  there  occurred  certain 
treacheries  that  even  to  this  day  make 
^'English  faith''  a  byword  and  a  hissing  in 
Ireland.  The  ^^banquet  of  Mullaghmast/' 
to  which  400  Irish  leaders  were  bidden  to 
attend  on  pain  of  having  refusal  considered  as 
a  ^4ack  of  amity,"  turned  into  a  butchery, 
only  one  guest  escaping  with  his  life.  Essex 
himself,  as  told  by  Lecky,  accepted  the 
hospitality  of  Sir  Brian  O'Neil,  and  after  a 
banquet,  when  the  Irish  chief  had  retired 
unsuspiciously  to  rest,  the  English  general 
surrounded  the  house  with  soldiers,  captured 
his  host,  with  his  wife  and  brother,  sent  them 
to  Dublin  for  execution,  and  massacred  the 
whole  body  of  his  friends  and  retainers. 

Yet  in  1594  the  Ulster  Irish  rose  again 

under  Hugh  O'Neill  and  Hugh  O'Donnell. 

Had  stage  and  audience  been  larger,  these 

two  leaders  would  stand  in  history  along  with 

Hannibal.     Uniting  their  people  and  driving 

their  armies  forward  with  a  skiU  that  rose  at 

times  to  military  genius,  these  indomitable 

65 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

men  beat  back  the  strength  of  England  for 
ten  terrible  years.  The  great  victory  of  the 
Yellow  Ford  destroyed  one  army,  and  in 
1599  a  new  and  larger  force  was  shattered 
and  dispersed. 

Lord  Mount  joy,  chosen  by  Elizabeth  to 
succeed  the  ill-fated  Earl  of  Essex,  found 
himself  master  of  only  a  few  miles  around 
Dublin,  but  new  thousands  were  poured  into 
Ireland,  and  under  sheer  weight  of  numbers 
the  Irish  were  forced  to  give  ground  in 
Leinster,  Munster,  and  Connaught.  By  the 
middle  of  1601  O'Neill  and  O'DonneU  faced 
defeat,  but  at  this  moment  came  the  long- 
expected  aid  from  Spain.  A  small  fleet, 
bearing  3,400  troops,  entered  the  harbor  of 
Kinsale  and  took  possession  of  the  town. 
The  English  forces,  12,000  strong,  gathered 
for  attack,  but  down  from  Ulster  swept 
O'Donnell  and  O'Neill,  hemming  in  the  be- 
siegers with  a  wall  of  spears. 

Victory  was  certain  with  patience,  for 
famine  and  disease  were  wasting  the  English, 
but  the  impetuous  O'Donnell  insisted  upon 
an  attack.  Through  treachery,  the  English 
were  given  information  of  the  Irish  plans,  the 
Spanish  did  not  co-operate,  a  terrible  storm 
separated  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell,  and   the 

66 


FIVE   CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

battle  was  lost.  The  Spanish  commander, 
broken-spirited,  basely  concluded  a  surrender 
that  saved  himself  even  while  it  sealed  the 
fate  of  O'Neill's  rebellion. 

This  did  not  mean,  however,  that  resist- 
ance was  ended.  Victory  had  been  too  near 
for  hope  to  die  instantly,  and  under  the 
banner  of  Donall  O'SuUivan,  the  Lord  of 
Beare  and  Bantry,  various  Irish  chieftains 
still  kept  up  the  fight,  giving  exhibitions  of 
courage  that  in  English,  French,  or  Amxcrican 
history  would  have  thrilled  school-children 
of  the  world  down  through  the  centuries. 

In  the  castle  of  Dunboy  a  garrison  of  143 
men  held  out  for  eighteen  days  against  a 
force  of  4,000  men  supported  by  heavy  artil- 
lery. Day  after  day  they  beat  back  attack; 
when  the  upper  walls  were  demolished  they 
retreated  to  the  cellars,  and  in  the  last  terrible 
grapple  the  wounded  survivors  crawled  with 
torches  to  the  powder-barrels  that  all  might 
perish  in  one  final  explosion.  Even  Carew, 
the  English  commander,  had  admiration,  if 
not  mercy,  reporting  that  ^^no  one  man  es- 
caped, but  were  either  slaine,  executed,  or 
buried  in  the  ruins;  and  so  obstinate  and  re- 
solved a  defense  had  not  been  seen  within 
this  kingdom." 

67 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

From  Spain  came  the  sad  news  of  O'Don- 
neirs  death;  Hugh  O'NeiU  was  fighting  for 
his  own  life  in  the  hills,  and  0' Sullivan 
Beare,  leaving  the  glens  of  South  Munster, 
resolved  to  join  forces  with  the  rebels  of 
Ulster.  In  the  dead  of  winter  he  set  out  at 
the  head  of  400  fighting  men,  carrying  in  his 
train  600  women  and  children,  and  for  two 
weeks  they  froze  and  starved  and  fought, 
ever  pushing  forward  indomitably,  until  at 
last,  when  they  staggered  across  the  thresh- 
old of  the  castle  of  the  O^Ruarcs,  just  35 
scarcely  human  beings  remained  of  the  orig- 
inal 1,000. 

The  policy  now  adopted  by  the  English 
was  to  destroy  utterly  everything  that  might 
sustain  life,  and  in  merciless  succession  the 
four  provinces  were  laid  waste  systematically 
and  completely.  The  few  remaining  Irish 
fled  to  the  hills  to  save  their  children  against 
the  day  when  Ireland  should  rise  again  to 
expel  the  invaders,  and  the  terror  of  the  land 
may  be  gathered  from  these  boasting  reports 
sent  to  London  by  Lord  Mountjoy: 

We  have  seen  no  one  man  in  all  Tyrone  of  late, 
but  dead  carcasses  merely  hunger  starved,  of  which 
we  found  divers  as  we  passed.  Between  Tullag- 
hoge  and  Toome  (seventeen  miles)  there  lay  unburied 

68 


'A 


m. 


.  .^viW>v-_--   '--.  -  ^-,'^<^,-\X^v<, 


O  SULLIVAN 
Earl  of  Bear  and  Bantry 


FIVE  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

one  thousand  dead,  and  since  our  first  drawing  this 
year  to  Blackwater  there  were  about  three  thousand 
starved  in  Tyrone.  And  no  spectacle  was  more  fre- 
quent in  the  ditches  of  towns  than  to  see  multitudes 
of  these  poor  people  dead  with  their  mouths  all  colored 
green  by  eating  nettles,  docks,  and  all  things  they 
could  rend  up  above  the  ground. 

Followed  James  I  in  time,  and  with  him 
came  new  and  ever  greater  persecutions  for 
the  Irish.  He  revived  the  Act  of  Supremacy 
that  excluded  every  Catholic  from  office  and 
the  practice  of  a  profession,  Ukewise  the 
Act  of  Uniformity  that  ordered  the  arrest 
and  fining  of  any  Catholic  absenting  him- 
seK  from  Protestant  worship  on  a  Sunday. 
Yet  another  thing  he  did  that  was  of  even 
greater  significance:  in  1610  all  the  fertile 
land  in  six  Ulster  counties  was  confiscated 
to  the  crown  and  parceled  out  to  English 
and  Scotch  Protestants,  who  might  not  even 
have  Irish  tenants.  Crushed  and  broken  at 
last,  to  all  seeming,  the  wretched  natives 
submitted  to  deportations,  or  else  roamed 
the  land,  homeless  and  wretched,  perishing 
by  the  thousands  from  cold  and  hunger. 

As  Macaulay  admits:  '^Ireland  was  un- 
disguisedly  governed  as  a  dependency  won 
by  the  sword.    Her  rude  national  institutions 

69 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

had  perished.  The  EngHsh  colonists  sub- 
mitted to  the  dictation  of  the  mother- 
country,  without  whose  support  they  could 
not  exist,  and  indemnified  themselves  by 
trampling  on  the  people  among  whom  they 
had  settled.  The  parliaments  which  met 
at  Dublin  could  pass  no  law  which  had  not 
been  previously  approved  by  the  English 
Privy  Council.  The  authority  of  the  Eng- 
lish Legislature  extended  over  Ireland.  The 
executive  administration  was  entrusted  to 
men  taken  either  from  England  or  from  the 
English  Pale,  and,  in  either  case,  regarded 
as  foreigners,  and  even  as  enemies,  by  the 
Celtic  population.'^ 

Yet  there  was  that  in  the  Irish  soul  that 
could  not  die.  Misery  might  well  have  made 
them  in  love  with  death,  but  the  voice  of 
freedom  caUed  them  back  from  the  peace 
of  the  grave,  and  again,  in  1641,  rebellion 
was  fanned  to  life  by  the  tyrannies  and  ill 
faith  of  Charles  I.  This  wretched  man,  dead 
to  honor  and  deaf  to  all  save  his  own  selfish 
desires,  entered  into  agreement  with  the  Irish 
by  which  they  were  to  pay  him  $600,000  for 
certain  laws  that  would  end  the  persecution 
of  Catholics  and  also  guarantee  Protestants 
against  confiscation  of  their  lands.     Charles 

70 


FIVE   CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

then  raised  the  amount  to  $1,200,000,  col- 
lected it,  and  also  gathered  in  an  extra  $100,- 
000  from  the  Catholics,  after  which  he  re- 
pudiated his  pledge  and  not  only  launched  a 
new  campaign  of  bigotry,  but  ordered  whole- 
sale confiscations  of  property  that  expelled 
thousands  of  Protestant  families. 

Wretched,  despairing,  Ireland  turned  again 
to  the  sword  as  the  only  remaining  means 
of  redress,  Roger  O'Moore  and  Sir  Phelim 
O'Neill  sounding  the  call  to  battle.  October 
23d  was  the  day  set  for  a  simultaneous  up- 
rising, and  while  a  spy's  warning  saved  Dub- 
lin Castle,  the  rebellion  swept  to  success  in 
Ulster,  Munster,  and  Connaught.  The  Eng- 
lish, rallying  quickly,  adopted  savage  meth- 
ods of  resistance  and  reprisal.  Clarendon, 
their  own  historian,  making  this  admission: 
^^ About  the  beginning  of  November,  (1641) 
the  English  and  Scots  forces  in  Cnockfergus 
murthered  in  one  night  aU  the  inhabitants  of 
the  territory  of  the  Island  Gee,  to  the  number 
of  three  thousand  men,  women,  and  children, 
all  innocent  persons,  at  a  time  when  none  of 
the  Catholics  in  that  country  were  in  arms  or 
rebellion.  Note:  that  this  was  the  first  mas- 
sacre committed  in  Ireland  on  either  side." 

This   spirit   communicated   to   the   Irish; 

71 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  lEISH  HISTORY 

horror  followed  horror,  and  what  com- 
menced as  a  war  degenerated  into  a  series  of 
disgraceful  cruelties  that  shamed  both  sides 
equally.  In  July,  1642,  however,  the  weak 
Sir  Phelim  gave  way  to  Owen  Roe  O'Neill, 
nephew  of  the  great  Earl  of  Tyrone,  who  sur- 
rendered his  brilliant  career  in  Spain  that 
he  might  strike  a  blow  for  Ireland.  He 
brought  discipline  out  of  lawlessness,  and 
furnished  statesmanship  as  well  as  military 
genius,  for  it  was  under  his  direction  that 
the  factions  united  in  the  Federation  of  Kil- 
kenny that  gave  the  rebels  a  government. 
For  eight  years  this  superb  captain  led  his 
people  against  the  English,  winning  victory 
after  victory,  but  in  the  very  hour  when  free- 
dom seemed  to  be  won  the  wheel  of  fate 
whirled  Ireland  back  to  its  old  disaster. 
Charles  was  beheaded,  and,  despite  the  pro- 
tests of  Owen  Roe,  the  Irish  earned  the  anger 
and  attention  of  Cromwell  by  committing 
themselves  to  the  cause  of  Charles  II. 

To  crush  the  Royalists  it  was  now  neces- 
sary to  crush  Ireland,  and  soon  Oliver  Crom- 
well landed  at  Dublin  with  an  army  of  9,000 
foot  and  4,000  horse,  trained  and  equipped. 
The  death  of  O'NeiU  left  the  Irish  without  a 
real  general,  and  defeat  came  quickly  and 

72 


FIVE   CENTURIES   OF   IRISH  WAR 

terribly.  Not  as  long  as  Ireland  is  Ireland 
will  the  memory  of  that  invasion  perish.  As 
well  ask  Belgium  to  forget  the  Germans. 
Massacre  piled  on  massacre,  soldiers  and 
civilians  being  butchered  without  distinction, 
and  even  when  the  horrors  of  Wexford  and 
Drogheda,  where  CromweU  exterminated 
after  offering  quarter,  had  somewhat  sated 
blood-lust,  the  policy,  as  given  by  CromweU, 
was  ^^when  they  submitted,  their  officers 
were  knocked  on  the  head,  every  tenth  man 
of  the  soldiers  was  killed  and  the  rest  shipped 
for  the  Barbadoes'^  as  slaves.  Even  chil- 
dren were  not  spared  by  reason  of  CromwelFs 
grim  remark  that  ^^nits  make  lice.'' 

For  three  years  the  slaughter  waged,  the 
exhausted  Irish  fighting  hopelessly  against 
overwhelming  odds,  and  then  reigned  the 
quiet  of  the  desert.  Famine  and  pestilence 
followed,  but  even  this  was  not  vengeance 
enough,  for  in  1652  the  English  Parliament 
declared  the  whole  of  Ireland  forfeit.  A  gi- 
gantic expropriation  was  ordered;  barren 
tracts  in  Leinster  were  assigned  to  the  Prot- 
estants and  Presbyterians  of  Ulster,  while 
the  Catholic  Irish  were  herded  into  the  waste 
places  of  Connaught.  Any  found  outside 
these  pales  after  May  1,  1654,  were  to  be  shot 

73 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

down  without  question.  It  was  said  of  Con- 
naught  in  those  days  that  there  was  ^^not 
wood  enough  to  hang,  water  enough  to  drown, 
or  earth  enough  to  bury  a  man/^  yet  even  so, 
further  prohibitions  were  added.  None  of 
the  CathoHc  Irish  banished  to  this  desolate 
region  might  appear  within  two  miles  of  the 
river  or  within  four  miles  of  the  sea.  Nor 
did  slavery  cease  with  Cromwell's  rage,  for 
as  late  as  1653  a  Capt.  John  Vernon  was 
taking  contracts  to  supply  the  American 
colonies  with  ^' Irish  wenches  above  twelve 
and  under  forty-five."  Regular  shipments 
were  also  continued  to  the  Barbadoes,  and 
the  revolting  traffic  ceased  only  when  it  was 
discovered  that  the  slave-dealers  did  not 
scruple  to  capture  Englishwomen  when  an 
Irish  supply  was  not  available. 

The  old  intent  of  the  English  was  also 
apparent  in  new  laws  designed  to  guard  their 
colonists  against  the  insidious  contamina- 
tions of  the  Gael.  The  Irish  nobility  were 
ordered  to  wear  badges  that  indicated  their 
nationality,  while  the  peasants,  under  pain  of 
being  branded,  were  made  to  go  about  with 
a  spot  of  black  on  the  right  cheek,  so  that 
Britons  might  be  able  to  avoid  them.  The 
assimilative  power  of  the  Irish  is  again  to 

74 


FIVE  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

be  noted,  for  in  forty  years  the  children  of 
Cromwell's  troopers  were  as  Gaelic  as  the 
native,  many  of  them  being  unable  to  speak 
a  word  of  English. 

Well  might  Green,  that  gentle  historian, 
exclaim  that  ^'no  such  doom  had  ever  fallen 
on  a  nation  in  modern  times  as  fell  upon 
Ireland  in  its  new  settlement.  Among  the 
bitter  memories  which  part  Ireland  from 
England  the  memory  of  the  bloodshed  and 
confiscation  which  the  Puritans  wrought 
remains  the  bitterest;  and  the  worst  curse  an 
Irish  peasant  can  hurl  at  his  enemy  is  Hhe 
curse  of  Cromwell/ '^ 

The  restoration  of  Charles  II  bettered  con- 
ditions in  small  degree  only.  The  Irish, 
allowed  to  come  out  of  their  coverts,  were  re- 
stored to  their  land  in  a  small  percentage  of 
instances,  but  the  treacherous  Charles  fell 
far  short  of  justice.  One  of  his  first  acts  was 
to  re-establish  the  Church  of  England,  and, 
although  Catholics  and  Presbyterians  had 
aided  alike  in  his  restoration,  the  bigotry 
of  the  false  Stuart  now  fell  heavily  upon 
both  faiths.  Catholic  James  II  followed 
Charles,  and  his  stupid  tyrannies  fanned  the 
flame  of  England's  Protestant  prejudices. 
In  1688  William  of  Orange  landed  in  Devon- 

75 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

shire  to  seize  the  English  crown,  and  James 
took  cowardly  flight  to  France.  England, 
sick  of  Stuarts,  accepted  the  Dutch  prince 
without  opposition,  but  in  Ireland  the  Earl 
of  Tirconnell  thought  it  tactical  to  declare 
for  the  exiled  James. 

Macaulay,  in  considering  this  phase  of 
Irish  history,  is  forced  to  pay  tribute  to  the 
Irish  Jacobite  as  contrasted  with  the  English 
Royalist:  ^'The  fallen  dynasty  was  nothing 
to  him.  He  had  been  brought  up  to  regard 
the  foreign  sovereigns  of  his  native  land  with 
the  feeling  with  which  the  Jew  regarded 
Csesar,  with  which  the  Scot  regarded  Edward 
the  First,  with  which  the  Castilian  regarded 
Joseph  Bonaparte,  with  which  the  Pole  re- 
garded the  Autocrat  of  the  Russias.  It  was 
the  boast  of  the  high-born  Milesian  that, 
from  the  twelfth  century  to  the  seventeenth, 
every  generation  of  his  family  had  been  in 
arms  against  the  English  crown.  His  re- 
mote ancestors  had  contended  with  Fitz- 
stephen  and  De  Burgh.  His  great-grand- 
father had  cloven  down  the  soldiers  of 
Ehzabeth  in  the  battle  of  Blackwater.  His 
grandfather  had  conspired  with  O'Donnell 
against  James  I.  His  father  had  fought 
under  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill  against  Charles  I, 


FIVE   CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR. 

The  confiscation  of  the  family  estate  had 
been  ratified  by  an  Act  of  Charles  II.  No 
Puritan  bore  less  affection  to  the  House  of 
Stuart  than  the  0' Haras  and  MacMahons,  on 
whose  support  the  fortunes  of  that  House 
now  seemed  to  depend.  The  fixed  purpose  of 
those  men  was  to  break  the  foreign  yoke,  to 
exterminate  the  Saxon  colony,  to  sweep  away 
the  Protestant  Church,  and  to  restore  the 
soil  to  its  ancient  proprietors.  To  obtain 
these  ends  they  would  without  the  smallest 
scruples  have  risen  up  against  James;  and  to 
obtain  these  ends  they  rose  up  for  him.  The 
Irish  Jacobites,  therefore,  were  not  at  all 
desirous  that  he  should  again  reign  at  White- 
hall; for  they  were  perfectly  aware  that  a 
Sovereign  of  Ireland,  who  was  also  a  Sov- 
ereign of  England,  would  not,  and,  even  if  he 
would,  could  not,  long  administer  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  smaller  and  poorer  kingdom 
in  direct  opposition  to  the  feeling  of  the  larger 
and  richer.  Their  real  wish  was  that  the 
crowns  might  be  completely  separated,  and 
that  their  island  might,  whether  with  James 
or  without  James  they  cared  little,  form  a 
distinct  state  under  the  powerful  protection 
of  France.''  This  after  five  hundred  years 
of  ^^Englishrule'M 

77 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Tirconnell  raised  an  army  and  by  various 
initial  successes  induced  James  to  come  to 
Dublin.  He  brought  with  him  some  400 
French  officers,  but  his  chief  asset  was  one 
Patrick  Sarsfield,  an  Irishman  well  worthy 
to  rank  with  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell.  To  Ire- 
land came  William  himself  in  1690,  and  the 
issue  was  decided  on  the  banks  of  the  Boyne 
near  Drogheda.  The  Irish,  numbering  26,- 
000,  were  poorly  equipped,  with  twelve  field- 
guns  as  their  only  artiUer^',  but  crowning 
weakness  of  all  was  the  leadership  of  the 
wretched  James.  Opposed  to  them  was  a 
veteran  army  of  40,000,  half  made  up  of 
Prussians,  Brandenburgers,  Danes,  Swedes, 
and  other  hardy  mercenaries,  backed  by 
fifty  field-guns,  and  strengthened  immeas- 
urably by  the  superb  leadership  of  William 
and  the  military  genius  of  the  Duke  of 
Schonberg.  After  a  day  of  furious  fighting, 
fittingly  marked  at  the  end  by  the  flight  of 
James,  the  Irish  confessed  defeat,  but  made 
their  escape  in  fairly  good  order. 

^'Change  kings  with  us,''  cried  Sarsfield, 
in  answer  to  an  English  taunt,  ^^and  we 
will  fight  you  again.'' 

Sarsfield  now  came  to  the  Irish  command, 
and  the  first  test  of  his  mettle  was  given  at 

78 


FIVE  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

Limerick,  where  he  rallied  his  men  after 
the  Boyne.  The  French  officers,  looking 
at  the  crumbled  walls,  dissociated  them- 
selves absolutely  from  the  siege,  sneering 
that  the  English  could  ^'batter  down  the 
ramparts  with  roasted  apples/^  Neverthe- 
less, Sarsfield  and  his  Irish,  against  odds, 
and  even  lacking  ammunition  and  artillery, 
held  the  enemy  at  bay  for  three  terrible 
weeks,  and  in  the  final  assault  administered 
so  crushing  a  defeat  to  the  besiegers  that 
William  retired  and  returned  to  England. 

In  May,  1691,  James  again  reached  out 
the  hand  of  confusion  from  his  safe  retreat 
in  France,  sending  Lieut.-Gen.  St.  Ruth  to 
take  command  of  the  Irish  army.  Brave 
enough  and  an  experienced  soldier,  St.  Ruth's 
great  weakness  was  an  abnormal  conceit  that 
made  him  impatient  of  advice  and  especially 
jealous  of  Sarsfield.  He  lost  the  battle  of 
Athlone  in  the  very  hour  that  he  was  bump- 
tiously celebrating  victory,  and  the  defeat 
at  Aughrim  was  equally  due  to  his  arrogant 
refusal  to  tell  his  officers  of  the  battle  plan. 
A  cannon-ball  took  off  his  head  at  a  critical 
point  in  the  fighting,  and  the  Irish,  utterly 
without  leadership,  feU  into  confusion  and 
final  rout. 

7  79 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Again  Sarsfield  was  called  to  captain  the 
disorganized  forces,  again  he  chose  Limerick 
as  his  citadel,  and  again  the  Dutch  Gen- 
eral Ginkle  attacked  with  Brandenburgers, 
Dutch  Blue  Guards,  French  Huguenots, 
and  trained  English  veterans.  After  five 
weeks,  when  the  siege  was  a  deadlock, 
Ginkle,  under  orders  from  King  William, 
proposed  a  fair  peace.  Sarsfield,  at  the  end 
of  his  resources,  and  believing  no  longer 
in  the  promise  of  aid  from  France,  agreed 
to  a  truce,  and  on  October  3d  a  formal 
treaty  was  signed.  The  ink  was  barely  dry 
when  a  French  fleet  sailed  up  the  Shannon, 
but  Sarsfield,  having  pledged  his  word,  re- 
fused to  receive  the  aid  that  would  have 
meant  victory.  His  honor  and  high  faith, 
unfortunately,  met  only  with  EngHsh  dis- 
honor and  ill  faith. 

The  terms  secured  by  Sarsfield  were  fair, 
guaranteeing  religious  liberty  and  explicitly 
pledging  that  only  the  usual  oath  of  alle- 
giance should  be  asked  of  Catholics.  Not 
only  were  these  solemn  pledges  of  the  crown 
violated  in  every  particular,  but  William, 
•following  in  the  footsteps  of  James  and 
Cromwell,  entered  upon  a  campaign  of  con- 
fiscation.    In  all,  William  forfeited  1,700,000 

80 


PATRICK  SABSFIELD 
Earl  of  Luoan 


FIVE  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  Wx\R 

acres.  While  Ginkle,  his  Dutch  general, 
was  given  a  handsome  grant,  the  land  for 
the  most  part  was  distributed  among  the 
king^s  personal  friends,  his  mistress  receiving 
a  great  tract  of  94,000  acres,  the  rentals  of 
which  amounted  to  £24,000  a  year.  A 
vast  hegira  commenced.  Sarsfield,  with 
10,000  of  his  men,  entered  the  service  of 
France,  won  the  baton  of  a  field-marshal, 
and,  dying  gloriously  in  an  hour  of  vic- 
tory, bewailed  his  ebbing  blood  in  these 
tragic  words:  ^^Oh,  that  this  was  for 
Ireland! '^ 

An  Irish  Parliament  met  in  Dublin  on 
October  5,  1692,  an  English  Protestant  body 
that  straightway  and  formally  repudiated 
every  covenant  of  the  treaty  made  by 
Ginkle  and  ratified  by  King  William.  While 
the  Catholics  constituted  four-fifths  of  the 
population,  all  power  was  given  to  the  Prot- 
estant minority,  and  laws  were  framed  that 
closed  Catholic  schools  and  churches,  robbed 
Catholics  of  land  and  civil  rights,  and 
doomed  thousands  to  hiding  or  exile.  The 
Protestants  and  Presbyterians  of  Ireland, 
while  exempted  from  religious  persecution, 
were  crushed  industrially  when  the  Enghsh 
Parliament  passed  laws  forbidding  Irish  trade 

81 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

with  the  colonies,  cutting  off  the  export  of 
live-stock  and  dairy  products  to  England, 
and  following  quickly  with  the  absolute 
destruction  of  the  wool  trade. 

Then  good  Queen  Anne  applied  the  Schism 
Act  of  Ireland,  forbidding  any  person  to 
teach  school  without  license  from  a  Protes- 
tant bishop  after  submission  to  a  sacra- 
mental test,  and  Hanoverian  George  not 
only  whipped  this  law  against  the  Ulster 
Presbyterians,  but  also  supplied  the  Test 
Act  to  them  as  well.  Thousands  were  dis- , 
charged  from  office  and  deported,  their  | 
schools  were  closed,  their  marriages  declared 
void,  and  Catholic  and  Protestant  alike 
groaned  under  English  enmity  that  fell  like 
a  shroud  on  the  people  and  industries  of 
Ireland.  Famine  and  pestilence  came  to 
make  poverty  and  idleness  more  horrible, 
and  forth  from  the  land  of  their  fathers 
poured  a  stream  of  Irish  immigration  that 
has  enriched  almost  every  civilized  country 
on  the  globe.  In  the  fifty  years  that  fol- 
lowed the  broken  Treaty  of  Limerick,  450,- 
000  Irishmen  followed  the  example  of  Sars- 
field,  entering  European  service;  others 
poured  into  America,  a  reviving  flood,  12,000 
a  year  from  Ulster  alone,  and  in  the  hour 

82 


FIVE  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  WAR 

of  American  rebellion  38  per  cent,  of  Wash- 
ington's army  was  Irish. 

In  Ireland,  drained  of  its  best,  there  was, 
to  use  the  words  of  Green,  ^Hhe  silence  of 
death,"  the  ^^ peace  of  despair,''  the  Irish 
victims  of  the  ^^most  terrible  legal  tyranny 
under  which  a  people  ever  groaned." 


Chapter  IV 
Two  Centuries  of  Irish  Rebellion 

THE  Treaty  of  LimericK  may  oe  said  to 
mark  the  end  of  Ireland^s  mihtary  re- 
sistance to  Enghsh  conquest.  For  full  five 
centuries  the  island  had  pitted  itself  against 
the  overwhelming  resources  of  England  in 
war  after  war,  and  defeat,  exile,  and  famine 
joined  at  last  to  rob  the  Irish  of  strength  to 
continue  the  struggle  on  any  open  field  of 
battle.  Yet  there  was  no  surrender  of  the 
spirit,  no  formal  submission,  no  pledge  of 
loyalty,  and  the  period  between  1691  and 
1916  is  one  long  record  of  protest,  agitation, 
and  insurrection  against  English  rule;  one 
continuous  chronicle  of  Irish  insistence  upon 
their  right  to  freedom.  In  1698  we  find 
William  Molyneux,  himseK  an  English  colo- 
nist, crying  out  against  British  tyranny  as 
bitterly  as  any  Gael,  and  writing  a  pamphlet 
in  support  of  Irish  independence  that  later 
served  James  Otis  in  his  statement  of  the 

84 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

American  case.  Macaulay,  in  considering 
the  claims  advanced  by  Molyneux,  makes  it 
crystal-clear  that  Ireland  was  not  a  con- 
quered country,  but  a  captured  province  held 
only  by  sheer  force  of  arms.  As  the  great 
historian  saw  it,  the  question  was  entirely 
between  England  and  the  English  colonists 
in  Ireland,  since  ^Hhe  aboriginal  inhabitants 
— more  than  five-sixths  of  the  public — had 
no  more  interest  in  the  matter  than  the 
swine  or  poultry.'^  The  protest  of  Molyneux 
was  set  down  as  stupid  and  ungrateful,  for 
'^no  colony  stood  in  such  need  of  the  support 
of  England'^;  many  times  ^Hhe  intruders 
were  in  imminent  danger  of  extermination' '; 
and  ^4t  was  owing  to  the  exertions  and  sac- 
rifices of  the  English  people  that  .  .  .  the 
Saxon  settlers  were  trampling  on  the  children 
of  the  soil."  Had  they  been  given  the  inde- 
pendence that  they  asked,  sneered  Macaulay, 
then  Molyneux  and  his  fellow-usurpers  would 
have  been  expelled  instantly  by  the  Irish. 

The  evil  conditions  denounced  by  Moly- 
neux remained  unremedied,  and  in  1716 
another  Englishman,  Archbishop  King,  the 
Anglican  primate  in  Ireland,  protested 
against  a  proposed  revenue  increase  in  these 
words:     ^^Upon  the  whole  I  do  not  see  how 

85 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Ireland  can  on  the  present  footing  pay 
greater  taxes  than  it  does  without  starving 
the  inhabitants  and  leaving  them  entirely 
without  meat  or  clothes.  They  have  al- 
ready given  their  bread,  their  flesh,  their 
butter,  their  shoes,  their  stockings,  their  beds, 
their  furniture,  and  their  houses  to  pay  their 
landlords  and  taxes.  I  cannot  see  how  any 
more  can  be  got  from  them  except  we  take 
away  their  potatoes  and  buttermilk,  or  slay 
them  and  sell  their  skins.'' 

In  1720  the  bitter  pen  of  Dean  Swift  fired 
the  Irish  heart  to  its  traditional  revolt, 
slowly  at  first,  for  the  nation  was  still  weak 
from  loss  of  blood,  but  faster  as  new  genera- 
tions came  on.  The  attempt  to  inclose  com- 
mon land,  high  taxes,  and  exorbitant  rents 
were  among  the  incitements,  but  indepen- 
dence was  soon  the  cry  from  Belfast  to 
Cork,  and,  while  there  was  no  capacity  for 
war,  violence  and  bloodshed  were  almost 
daily  occurrences  in  all  four  provinces.  Fam- 
ine scourged  the  land  in  1726  and  again  in 
1740,  Lecky  recording  these  instances  of 
human  agony  as  related  by  an  eye-witness: 
^^I  have  seen  the  laborer  endeavoring  to 
work  at  his  spade,  but  fainting  from  want  of 
food  and  forced  to  quit  it.     I  have  seen  the 

86 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

aged  father  eating  grass  like  a  beast,  and  in 
the  anguish  of  his  soul  wishing  for  his  disso- 
lution. I  have  seen  the  helpless  orphan  ex- 
posed on  the  dung-heap,  and  none  to  take 
him,  for  fear  of  infection,  and  I  have  seen  the 
hungry  infant  sucking  at  the  breast  of  the 
already  expired  parent. '^ 

Helpless,  for  the  English  army  of  occupa- 
tion was  always  crouched  to  spring,  the 
Irish  were  confined  to  sporadic  uprisings 
until  the  American  Revolution  came  with 
its  message  of  courage  and  inspiration.  The 
shot  at  Concord  echoed  nowhere  more  loudly 
than  in  Ireland,  and  when  King  George  tried 
to  draft  4,000  Irishmen  for  service  against 
Washington,  offering  to  send  Hessians  in 
return,  the  Red  Hand  of  Ulster  lifted  again 
in  one  of  its  old  fierce  gestures.  Ostensibly 
for  the  protection  of  the  coast  against  the 
French,  a  volunteer  force  of  100,000  sprang 
into  being,  drawing  in  men  from  south  and 
west.  Catholics  as  well  as  Protestants,  and 
it  was  this  mailed  hand  that  caught  at  the 
throat  of  Parliament. 

'^Talk  not  to  me  of  peace,''  cried  Hussey 
Burgh;  ^^ Ireland  is  not  at  peace;  it  is  smoth- 
ered war.  England  has  sown  laws  as  dragons' 
teeth;  they  have  spnmg  up  as  armed  men." 

87 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Powerless  before  the  open  threat  of  armed 
force,  Lord  North  hfted  certain  grievous 
restrictions  from  Irish  commerce,  and  also 
abated  many  of  the  penal  enactments  that 
weighed  heavily  on  Protestant  and  Catholic 
alike.  Realizing  that  it  was  Ireland's  hour, 
Grattan,  then  in  the  very  flower  of  his  virile 
genius,  boldly  launched  the  demand  for' 
Irish  legislative  independence.  With  Ire- 
land in  arms  and  the  people  aflame,  England 
faced  concession  or  revolution,  and  the  right 
of  the  Parliament  of  Ireland  to  enact  its  own 
laws  was  granted! 

In  1783  England,  increasingly  threatened 
by  the  Volunteers,  went  still  farther,  passing 
the  Act  of  Renunciation,  declaring  that 
^^  Ireland's  right  to  be  bound  only  by  laws 
made  by  the  Irish  Parliament  was  both  es- 
tablished and  ascertained  forever,  and  shall 
at  no  time  hereafter  be  questioned  or  ques- 
tionable." 

Then,  as  never  before,  the  Irish  had  oppor- 
tunity to  win  independence.  England  was  at 
her  weakest;  the  country  had  courage  from 
America's  success,  the  Volunteers  numbered 
500,000,  and  the  action  of  the  Protestants 
in  demanding  Catholic  emancipation  had 
brought  about  a  wonderful  unity  and  en- 

88 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

thusiasm.  Grattan  and  Lord  Charlemont, 
however,  were  in  no  sense  revolutionists,  and 
both  felt  complete  satisfaction  with  the  Act 
of  Repeal;  there  was  no  O'Neill  to  lead,  and 
so  the  opportunity  went  by. 

As  had  been  prophesied  by  the  more  far- 
seeing,  it  soon  came  to  be  seen  that  the  new 
freedom  was  more  illusory  than  real.  As 
Green  points  out,  ^independence  was  a  mere 
name  for  the  uncontrolled  rule  of  a  few  noble 
families  and  of  the  Irish  Executive  backed 
by  the  support  of  the  English  government. 
To  such  a  length  had  the  whole  system  of 
monopoly  and  patronage  been  carried  that 
at  the  time  of  the  Union  more  than  sixty 
seats  were  in  the  hands  of  three  families 
alone,  those  of  the  Hills,  the  Ponsonbys,  and 
the  Beresfords.'' 

Of  the  300  members  of  Parliament  not 
more  than  70  were  returned  by  the  free  votes 
of  the  people;  it  was  still  the  case  that  a 
Catholic  could  neither  be  a  member  nor  vote 
for  members,  and  by  a  system  of  pensions, 
gifts,  and  open  cash  bribes  the  English  gov- 
ernment had  an  absolute  majority  at  all 
times. 

Grattan  saw  parliamentary  reform  as  a 
necessity,  and  in  bitter  terms  he  commenced 

89 


''/ 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

exposure  of  the  corruption  that  made  the 
Irish  body  a  mock.  Another  burning  griev- 
ance was  the  law  that  compelled  Cathohcs, 
Presbyterians,  and  even  Anglican  Protestants 
to  pay  tithes  for  the  support  of  the  clergy  of 
the  Established  Church.  As  grazing-lands 
were  exempt  from  taxation,  the  whole  bur- 
den fell  on  the  starving  small  farmer. 

These  demands  meeting  persistent  rejec- 
tion, the  Volunteers  advocated  rebellion,  and 
when  the  leaders  continued  to  preach  mod- 
eration and  delay,  the  great  organization  dis- 
integrated into  secret  groups  committed  to 
violence.  Out  of  these  scattered  bands  came 
the  United  Irishmen  in  1791,  under  the 
leadership  of  Theobald  Wolfe  Tone,  Lord 
Edward  Fitzgerald,  and  Arthur  O'Connor, 
Protestants  all,  and  Presbyterian  in  its  es- 
sence, but  with  the  broad  platform  of  parlia- 
mentary reform  and  Catholic  emancipation. 

Pitt,  seeing  the  danger,  planned  a  policy 
of  conciliation,  but  yielded  weakly  enough 
when  frowned  down  by  the  king,  and  par- 
liamentary reform  and  religious  liberty  were 
both  denied.  Realizing  that  English  bigo- 
try made  justice  impossible,  Pitt  now  re- 
solved to  end  the  farce  of  Irish  independence. 
Doubtless  he  argued  that  an  English  Parlia- 

90 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

ment,  with  Irish  representation,  would  be  an 
improvement  upon  the  corruptions  of  the 
Dubhn  body,  but  whatever  his  motive,  his 
methods  were  damnable.  England  had  de- 
clared the  validity  of  the  Irish  Parliament 
^Ho  be  established  and  ascertained  forever 
and  shall  at  no  time  hereafter  be  questioned 
or  questionable,^'  and  to  justify  the  repudia- 
tion of  this  solemn  pledge,  Pitt  set  out  de- 
liberately to  provoke  rebellion. 

Earl  Fitzwilliam,  the  wise  and  well-beloved, 
was  recalled  in  favor  of  a  hated  bigot,  the 
^^ Bloody  Code''  was  enacted  that  turned  Ire- 
land into  one  vast  prison,  the  lash  and  the 
^^ pitch  cap"  became  familiar  methods  of 
torture,  and,  crudest  of  all,  the  Society  of 
Orangemen  was  formed,  under  governmental 
authority  and  subsidy,  to  revive  rehgious 
hatreds. 

The  United  Irishmen  now  numbered  500,- 
000,  and,  convinced  that  rebellion  was  the 
one  course  left  open,  an  alliance  was  a'rranged 
with  the  French.  A  fleet  of  43  war-ships, 
with  15,000  troops,  sailed  from  Brest  under 
General  Hoche,  but  a  great  storm  swept  the 
seas  and  only  16  ships  entered  Bantry  Bay; 
the  vessel  bearing  General  Hoche  never 
arrived,  and  after  a  week  of  waiting  the 

91 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

others  sailed  back  to  France.  Pitt  merely 
poured  fresh  soldiers  by  the  thousands  into 
Ireland,  placed  Ulster  under  martial  law, 
and  throughout  1797  continued  his  policy  of 
wholesale  arrest  and  brutal  oppression. 

In  1798,  when  the  United  Irishmen  re- 
solved to  strike  without  waiting  longer  for 
French  aid,  agents  were  in  the  very  inner 
circle  of  the  revolutionists.  On  the  eve  of 
the  uprising  the  majority  of  the  leaders  were 
arrested,  Dublin  was  placed  under  martial 
law,  and  the  British,  hitting  hard  at  various 
points,  prevented  united  action.  In  spite 
of  everything  the  people  rose,  and  from  May 
throughout  the  summer  Ireland  rang  with  the 
noise  of  bitter  fighting.  In  the  north,  how- 
ever, the  battle  of  Ballynahinch  proved  a 
conclusive  defeat,  while  in  the  south  20,000 
English  soldiers  beat  down  the  rebels  in  the 
final  battle  of  Vinegar  Hill. 

In  August  a  small  French  force  landed 
in  Mayo,  but  was  forced  to  surrender,  and 
some  weeks  later  a  French  fleet,  directed  by 
WoKe  Tone,  met  the  English  in  battle  off 
Lough  Swilly  and  lost  the  day.  Tone, 
captured  and  condemned  to  death,  despite 
his  French  uniform  and  rank  as  a  French 
officer,  was  about  to  be  saved  by  Curran's 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

legal  skill  when  the  prison  authorities  an- 
nounced the  news  of  his  '^suicide.''  Over 
70,000  lives  were  lost  in  the  rebellion  and 
whole  counties  were  laid  waste,  but  the  defeat 
of  the  rebels  did  not  bring  an  end  to  violence, 
for  English  yeomanry  and  militia  marched 
up  and  down  the  land  with  torch  and  sword 
and  lash,  ravaging  and  ravishing.  Lord 
Cornwallis,  sent  at  this  time  to  command  in 
Ireland,  doubtless  because  of  his  experience 
with  American  rebels,  was  shocked  at  the 
barbarities  that  came  under  his  eye,  and  shut 
up  the  torture  houses  and  forbade  pitch- 
lined  caps  to  be  lighted  on  men's  heads.  As 
he  records  it  himself,  ^'On  my  arrival  in  this 
country  I  put  a  stop  to  the  burning  of  houses 
and  murder  of  the  inhabitants  by  the  yeo- 
men, or  any  other  person  who  delighted  in 
that  amusement;  and  to  the  flogging  for  the 
purpose  of  extorting  confession;  and  to  the 
free-quarters,  which  comprehend  universal 
rape  and  robbery  throughout  the  whole 
country.''  There  remained  the  courts,  how- 
ever, and  for  months  the  gallows  of  Ireland 
creaked  to  the  faU  of  bodies.  Packed  juries, 
prejudiced  judges,  informers,  and  even  the 
methods  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  raced 
arrested  persons  from  the  prisoner's  dock  to 

93 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

burial  in  quicklime,  and  soon  the  land  was 
again  ^'at  peace.'' 

With  stage  all  set,  Pitt  now  brought  for- 
ward his  Act  of  Union,  supporting  it  by  a 
campaign  of  corruption  absolutely  unparal- 
leled. Over  $6,000,000  was  spent  in  bribes 
alone.  Thirty-two  peers  were  promoted  and 
twenty-eight  new  peers  were  created,  while 
offices  and  pensions  were  scattered  with  a 
lavish  hand.  The  people  seethed,  but  new 
armies  were  poured  into  the  country  from 
England,  and,  sped  forward  by  bribery,  the 
bill  was  carried.  The  king  gave  royal  assent 
and  the  Act  of  Union  came  into  operation  on 
January  1,  1801. 

No  English  statesman  or  English  writer 
has  ever  had  courage  to  support  Pitt's  action 
or  even  to  extenuate  his  methods.  Fox 
characterized  the  Union  as  ^^  atrocious  in  its 
principle  and  abominable  in  its  means,"  and 
a  '' measure  the  most  disgraceful  to  the  gov- 
ernment that  was  ever  carried  or  proposed." 
Gladstone,  in  1886,  after  full  study  of  the 
whole  affair,  said,  pubhcly,  ^^I  know  no 
blacker  or  fouler  transaction  in  the  history 
of  man  than  the  making  of  the  Union  be- 
tween England  and  Ireland." 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  resistance  was 

94 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

still  left  in  the  land.  The  United  Irishmen 
gathered  again,  the  leaders  sought  the  aid  of 
Napoleon,  and  an  insurrection  was  planned 
for  August,  1803.  The  tragedy  of  blunders 
that  seems  to  envelop  every  Irish  revolution- 
ary movement  did  not  permit  Robert  Emmet 
to  escape.  An  accidental  explosion  in  one 
of  his  secret  depots  forced  him  to  act  in  July 
without  the  full  co-operation  even  of  his 
Dublin  forces,  while  the  rebels  in  other 
cities  and  counties  were  in  even  more  com- 
plete ignorance  of  the  forced  change  in  plans. 
The  boy  went  to  the  gallows  in  September 
with  the  consciousness  of  failure  bitter  in 
his  heart,  but  it  remained  for  him,  at  least, 
to  show  the  world  how  an  Irishman  could 
die. 

Daniel  O^Connell,  rising  to  undisputed 
leadership  in  1808,  definitely  decided  upon 
two  objectives  at  the  very  outset  of  his 
career — CathoUc  emancipation  and  the  re- 
peal of  the  Act  of  Union.  After  a  battle  of 
twenty  years,  marked  by  an  amazing  and 
increasing  unity  in  Ireland,  Catholic  eman- 
cipation became  a  law  on  April  15,  1829. 
Encouraged  by  this  triumph,  O'Connell 
devoted  the  next  eleven  years  to  constitu- 
tional agitation  for  repeal,  but  the  English 

8  95 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

government  stood  like  iron  against  further 
concession. 

Now  came  new  fighting  and  bloodshed  with 
the  ^^ Tithes  War''  that  started  in  1830. 
Tithes,  collected  from  Catholic,  Presbyterian, 
and  Methodist  alike  for  the  support  of  the 
clergy  of  the  Estabhshed  Church,  had  been 
hated  always,  but  ^Hithe  proctors''  added 
the  touch  of  unbearable  bitterness.  These 
men,  hired  to  collect  the  tax,  worked  on  a 
percentage  basis,  and  it  was  therefore  to  their 
interest  to  make  the  tithes  as  large  as  pos- 
sible. Their  dishonesty,  coupled  with  bru- 
tality, evoked  resistance;  military  and  the 
police  were  called  out  to  support  the  proc- 
tors; the  peasantry  armed  themselves,  and 
for  eight  years  there  was  daily  fighting, 
with  great  loss  of  life.  By  1833  the  English 
army  in  Ireland  was  as  large  as  that  main- 
tained in  India,  costing  the  Irish  taxpayers 
$5,000,000  to  support,  aU  in  addition  to  a 
constabulary  force  that  drained  the  island 
for  a  further  $1,500,000.  Even  putting  these 
huge  sums  to  one  side,  the  court  costs  were 
such  that  every  pound  collected  meant  a 
loss  of  two  pounds  to  the  government. 
These  conditions,  and  the  sad  fact  that  the 
English  treasury  was  finally  forced  to  grant 

96 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

allowances  to  the  Protestant  clergy,  brought 
about  reform  at  last,  and  the  tithes,  reduced 
by  one-fourth,  were  put  on  the  landlords. 

In  1840  the  first  definite  revolt  took  place 
against  O^Conneirs  virtual  kingship.  The 
conviction  had  been  growing  that  nothing 
could  be  won  from  England  save  by  force  of 
arms,  and  the  Irish,  recovered  from  the 
slaughter  of  1798,  and  burning  with  the  mem- 
ory of  Tone  and  Emmet,  begged  to  be  led 
against  the  Saxon.  The  answer  of  O^Con- 
nell  cannot  be  viewed  as  anything  but  a  com- 
promise. He  frowned  down  the  proposal 
that  the  sword  should  be  drawn,  but  con- 
sented to  put  aside  his  parliamentary  activi- 
ties in  favor  of  a  series  of  tremendous  meet- 
ings at  which  he  preached  a  virtual  doctrine 
of  rebellion. 

Not  in  the  history  of  the  world  is  there  a 

record  of  anything  like  these  gatherings  in 

point  of  size  and  massed  emotion.     At  Tara, 

home   of   the   Irish   kings,    1,000,000   men, 

women,  and  children  assembled  of  a  Sunday, 

many  walking  for   days   that   they  might 

attend — dream-people  pursuing  their  dream 

to  the  gravels  edge  and  beyond  if  needs  be. 

The  climax  came  at  Clontarf  on  October  8, 

1843j  when  another  million  gathered,  crying 

97 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

aloud,  as  they  marched:  ^^Give  us  the  word, 
O'Connell !  Give  us  the  word ! "  At  the  very 
last  moment  the  Enghsh  government  forbade 
the  meeting,  hurhng  an  army  into  Clontarf 
to  overawe  or  else  to  crush,  and  O^Connell 
made  the  decision  that  lost  him  loyalty,  if 
not  love.  Shrinking  from  the  slaughter  that 
impended,  he  ordered  his  people  to  disperse. 
When  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  the  Irish  were 
poorly  armed,  that  the  fighting  men  were  sur- 
rounded by  their  families,  and  that  any  com- 
mand to  strike  could  have  meant  nothing 
but  terrible  and  useless  slaughter,  how  can 
O^Connell  be  blamed?  There  is  that  in  the 
Irish,  however,  that  holds  contempt  for 
caution.  Other  nations  have  their  traditions 
of  bravery,  and  history  is  thick  with  the 
record  of  races  who  have  had  no  fear  of 
death,  but  it  is  given  to  the  Irish  alone  to  take 
no  thought  of  odds,  to  count  hopelessness  as 
encouraging  as  a  fair  field,  and  to  stand  ever 
ready  to  die  gladly  as  a  mere  matter  of  pro- 
test. 

Now  a  new  torment  broke  on  the  land,  for 
1845  saw  the  failure  of  the  potato  crop  and 
the  coming  of  famine.  In  the  three  years 
that  followed  more  than  1,500,000  men, 
women,  and  children  died  of  starvation  and 

98 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

fever.  The  horror  of  it  all,  as  well  as  the 
cause  of  the  bitterness  that  lives  to  this  day, 
was  that  there  was  food  in  plenty,  for  in  1847 
alone  crops  to  the  value  of  almost  £45,000,- 
000  sterling  were  grown  in  Ireland.  These 
crops,  owned  by  absentee  landlords,  were 
sent  away  to  ^^ better  markets,''  and  an  irony 
of  the  tragedy  was  that  relief-ships,  bearing 
food  from  the  United  States  to  Ireland, 
passed  other  vessels  carrying  Irish  food- 
stuffs to  England,  where  people  had  money 
with  which  to  meet  the  greed  of  the  alien 
owners  of  Irish  soil. 

In  words  that  stir  and  inflame  even  to-day, 
John  Mitchel,  whose  grandson  was  to  become 
the  mayor  of  America's  greatest  city,  painted 
the  agony  of  Ireland  in  1847: 

Go  where  you  would,  in  the  heart  of  the  town  or  in 
the  suburb,  there  was  the  stillness  and  heavy,  pall-like 
feel  of  the  chamber  of  death.  You  stood  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  dread,  silent,  vast  dissolution.  An  unseen 
ruin  was  creeping  round  you.  You  saw  no  war  of 
classes,  no  open  janizary  war  of  foreigners,  no  human 
agency  of  destruction.  You  could  weep,  but  the 
rising  curse  died  unspoken  within  your  heart  like  a 
profanity.  Human  passion  there  was  none,  but  in- 
human and  unearthly  quiet.  Children  met  you,  toihng 
heavily  on  stone-heaps,  but  their  burning  eyes  were 
senseless  and  their  faces  cramped  and  weazened  like 

99 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

stunted  old  men.  Gangs  worked,  but  without  a  mur- 
mur or  a  whistle  or  a  laugh,  ghostly,  like  voiceless 
shadows  to  the  eye.  Even  womanhood  had  ceased  to 
be  womanly.  The  birds  of  the  air  caroled  no  more, 
and  the  crow  and  the  raven  dropped  dead  upon  the 
wing.  Nay,  the  sky  of  heaven,  the  blue  mountains, 
the  still  lake,  stretching  far  away  westward,  looked  not 
as  their  wont.  Between  them  and  you  rose  up  a 
steaming  agony,  a  film  of  suffering,  impervious  and 
dim.  It  seemed  as  if  the  anima  mundi,  the  soul  of  the 
land,  was  faint  and  dying,  and  that  the  faintness  and 
the  death  had  crept  into  all  things  of  heaven  and 
earth. 

A  new  movement  arose — Young  Ireland — 
and  John  Mitchel,  Thomas  Francis  Meagher, 
and  Smith  O'Brien  ascended  to  the  throne  of 
O'Connell.  These  words  of  Meagher  strike 
the  key-note  of  their  poHcy:  ^'The  language 
of  sedition  is  the  language  of  freemen. 
There  shall  be  no  duplicity  in  this  matter.  I 
am  guilty  of  an  attempt  to  sow  disafifection 
in  the  minds  of  the  people.  I  am  guilty  of 
an  attempt  to  overthrow  this  government, 
which  keeps  its  footing  on  our  soil  by  brute 
force  and  by  nothing  else.'' 

The  word  went  out  to  the  people  to  arm 

themselves,  and  the  making  of  pikes  at  once 

became  the  principal  Irish  industry.  Mitchel 

was  arrested  and  deported  but  Meagher  and 

ioo 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

O'Brien  swept  the  land  like  a  flame.  French 
aid  was  sought  for  the  coming  rebellion,  but 
the  prudent  Lamartine,  busy  with  his  own 
uprising,  checked  the  willingness  of  his  fellow- 
revolutionists,  and  denied  the  request  of 
Meagher. 

The  English  government  sent  out  an  order 
to  the  people  to  give  up  their  arms.  Meagher 
ordered  them  to  keep  their  arms.  The  issue 
was  now  drawn,  and  the  leaders  agreed  that 
the  uprising  should  start  in  Kilkenny.  The 
day  dawned,  but  when  the  sun  went  down 
another  series  of  blunders  was  written  into 
the  Irish  record  instead  of  the  victory  that 
had  been  hoped.  The  English  government 
had  its  paid  spies,  as  usual,  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  movement.  DubUn  never  received 
the  orders  of  Meagher,  the  1,000  men  of 
Waterford  were  given  counter-instructions, 
and  the  last  chapter  was  written  when  all  the 
leaders  were  arrested  and  deported. 

Between  1848  and  1855,  2,000,000  people 
left  Ireland  to  find  homes  in  other  lands,  the 
bulk  of  them  coming  to  the  United  States. 
Bitter  law  followed  bitter  law,  and  in  1858 
James  Stephens  first  sounded  the  call  for  the 
Irish  Republican  Brotherhood,  a  movement 
dedicated  to  physical  force.     Meagher  and 

101 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Mitchel  were  now  in  America,  after  a  dra- 
matic escape  from  Van  Diemen^s  Land,  the 
latter  wielding  his  brilliant  pen  and  Meagher 
rising  to  heights  of  popularity  through  heroic 
leadership  of  the  Irish  Brigade  in  the  Civil 
War. 

It  was  in  America  that  the  Fenians  formed 
in  1861,  and  the  spirit  of  this  organization, 
marching  to  Ireland  with  men  and  dollars, 
joined  hands  with  the  Brotherhood  and 
planned  the  rising  of  1867.  The  people  were 
armed,  they  had  the  leadership  of  officers 
trained  in  our  Civil  War,  and  there  was  a 
period  when  it  seemed  that  the  revolt  had  a 
chance  for  success.  Again,  however,  the 
English  spy  and  the  informer  were  in  the 
inner  circles,  treachery  resulted  in  the  arrest 
of  all  the  leaders,  and  the  most  terrible  storm 
in  the  history  of  Ireland  broke  the  force  of 
the  uprising  as  effectively  as  British  arms. 
From  1870  to  1916,  first  under  the  leadership 
of  Isaac  Butt,  then  Parnell,  then  Redmond, 
the  fight  of  Ireland  for  independence  was  the 
fight  in  the  English  Parliament  for  Home 
Rule,  with  the  Clan-na-Gael  persisting  only 
as  a  protest. 

Michael  Davitt's  Land  League,  formed  to 
resist  the  merciless  evictions  that  made  Ire- 

102 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

land  a  hell,  had  the  promise  of  rebellion. 
Without  right  to  any  fixity  of  tenure,  the 
Irish  tenant  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  alien 
landlord.  If  industrious  enough  to  improve 
the  land  by  his  toil,  his  rent  was  raised  to 
keep  pace  with  the  improvement.  It  was 
more  often  the  case,  however,  that  the  land- 
lords, seeing  larger  profit  in  grazing,  delib- 
erately dispossessed  the  tenant  in  order  to 
consolidate  holdings  and  turn  tilled  fields 
into  pastures.  As  the  consequence,  the 
Irish  farmers  were  forced  to  plow  the  barren 
hillsides,  while  down  in  the  fertile  valleys 
below  grazed  cattle  and  sheep  fattening  for 
the  English  market.  Between  the  years 
1859  and  1882,  inclusive,  the  official  records 
show  that  98,723  families  were  evicted  sum- 
marily, a  total  of  504,747  men,  women,  and 
children  driven  shelterless  to  starve  and  die 
on  field  or  mountain-side.  The  Coercion 
bill  of  1881,  by  which  the  Lord-Lieutenant 
was  empowered  to  arrest  and  imprison  any 
on  suspicion,  and  to  hold  them  without  trial 
or  right  of  counsel,  had  no  power  to  break 
the  movement,  but  ParnelFs  iron  will  ab- 
sorbed the  Land  League  and  eventually  made 
it  part  of  his  parliamentary  program. 

It  is  in  1916  that  we  return  again  to  the 

103 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Irish  tradition,  the  ancient  faith  that  Ire- 
land's freedom  can  only  be  won  with  Irish 
blood,  either  shed  in  battle  with  victory  as 
the  wild  hope,  or  in  martyrdom  to  shock  the 
world  into  attention  and  some  sympathy. 
For  months  before  Dublin's  tragic  Easter 
Monday,  rebellion  had  been  brewing.  The 
English  government's  surrender  of  Home 
Rule  to  Ulster's  threat  of  armed  rebellion; 
wholesale  arrests  under  the  Defense  of  the 
Realm  Act;  the  suppression  of  free  speech  and 
free  press — all  joined  to  arouse  the  Irish.  It 
is  known  now  that  on  May  15,  1915,  when 
Asquith  formed  his  anti-Home  Rule  Coali- 
tion Cabinet,  making  Sir  Edward  Carson 
England's  Attorney-General,  only  Professor 
MacNeill's  deciding  vote  kept  the  Irish  Vol- 
unteers from  rising. 

Continued  arrests  and  deportations,  the 
threat  of  conscription,  and  the  authorita- 
tive report  that  the  government  planned  to 
disarm  the  Volunteers,  drove  forward  to  the 
spring  of  1916.  Easter  Sunday,  April  23d, 
was  the  day  set  for  the  rebellion,  but,  as 
always  in  the  past,  plans  went  awry,  and  the 
old  tragedy  of  blunders,  cross-purposes,  and 
counter-orders  was  played  out  to  the  bitter 
end. 

104 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

Two  days  before  the  time  set,  a  German 
submarine  landed  Sir  Roger  Casement  on  the 
Irish  shore  near  Tralee.  He  could  not  reach 
Dublin  himself,  but  messengers  carried  to 
Eoin  MacNeiU,  then  commander  of  the  Vol- 
unteers, an  imperative  plea  that  the  insurrec- 
tion be  postponed.  Casement  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  plans  of  the  Irish  leaders,  and  went 
upon  the  assumption  that  rebellion  was  de- 
pendent upon  German  aid,  whereas  Connolly 
and  Pearse  were  looking  to  Ireland  alone  for 
strength  and  success.  MacNeill,  however, 
an  academic  type,  fell  in  readily  enough  with 
the  suggestion  of  postponement,  and  all  Sat- 
urday and  far  into  the  night  he  sped  men 
north  and  south  to  tell  the  people  to  return  to 
their  homes  and  wait  for  another  day.  Mac- 
Neill's  order,  astounding  and  disappointing, 
was  nevertheless  obeyed,  and  Sunday^s  mo- 
bilization scattered  far  and  wide. 

The  Dublin  leaders,  however,  Pearse,  Con- 
nolly, Clarke,  MacDonagh,  MacDermott, 
and  Joseph  Plunkett,  were  ^Hhrow-backs^' 
to  Tone  and  Emmet,  and  the  men  they  led 
had  in  their  souls  the  traditions  of  0' Sullivan 
Beare  and  Sarsfield.  Having  placed  their 
feet  on  the  heights  of  resolve,  they  refused  to 
descend.     Unable  to  undo  MacNeill's  blun- 

105 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

der,  fully  realizing  that  the  fatal  order  robbed 
them  of  all  hope  of  assistance,  the  little  group 
took  the  vow  of  death  and  marched  forth  on 
Easter  Monday  to  pit  their  courage  against 
the  might  of  England. 

A  first  act  was  to  proclaim  the  Irish  Re- 
public with  this  provisional  government: 
Padraic  Pearse,  president;  James  Connolly, 
commanding  general,  and  Thomas  J.  Clarke, 
Thomas  MacDonagh,  J.  B.  Plunkett,  Sean 
MacDiarmid  and  Eamonn  Ceannt.  The 
revolutionaries  seized  St.  Stephen's  Green, 
the  post-office,  several  factories,  a  college 
building,  and  also  launched  an  unsuccessful 
attack  against  the  castle.  Never  at  any  time 
did  the  rebel  forces  number  over  1,000,  and 
yet  for  seven  days  and  seven  nights  this 
scattered  band  held  out  against  an  army  of 
40,000  trained  soldiers,  supported  by  artillery 
and  aided  by  bombardment  from  a  gunboat 
in  the  river. 

Flame  and  fire  turned  Dublin  into  a  hell, 
nor  did  non-combatants  escape  the  passions 
of  the  moment.  Sheehy-Skeffington,  a  paci- 
fist and  only  on  the  streets  in  the  interests  of 
order,  was  arrested  one  day  and  killed  the 
next.  Captain  Bowen-Colthurst,  responsible 
for  this  murder    shot  down  other  peaceful 

106 


JAMES   CONNOLLY 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

citizens  with  his  revolver  as  he  walked,  and 
had  his  riflemen  riddle  houses  where  women 
were  putting  their  children  to  bed.  A  later 
court  of  inquiry,  it  may  be  mentioned, 
found  him  guilty,  but  adjudged  him  insane, 
and  after  a  period  of  confinement  he  was 
quietly  released.  Such  occurrences  as  these, 
and  the  added  fact  that  Dublin  was  under 
constant  shell-fire,  with  whole  blocks  burn- 
ing, moved  Pearse  where  force  had  failed, 
and  his  surrender  was  made  ^Ho  prevent  the 
further  slaughter  of  unarmed  people.'' 

The  cost  of  the  rebellion  was  millions  in 
money,  304  lives,  1,002  wounded,  1,000  pris- 
oners either  executed  or  deported,  and  most 
terrible  of  all,  a  new  flame  to  ancient  hate. 

So  ends  the  story  of  English  invasion  and 
Irish  rebellion!  For  five  centuries  one  con- 
tinuous chronicle  of  war — daily,  terrible,  im- 
placable, from  1700  to  1800  a  steady  record 
of  protest,  disorder,  and  violence,  culmi- 
nating in  the  bloody  uprising  of  1798;  in  the 
last  one  hundred  years  one  hundred  Coercion 
Acts,  suspensions  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  and  resorts  to  martial  law,  punctu- 
ated by  the  revolts  of  1803,  1848,  1867,  and 
1916. 

Why?    The  question  cries  from  every  page 

107 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

of  Irish  history.  War  is  understandable, 
but  not  the  savageries  of  extirpation;  harsh- 
ness is  a  commonplace  in  the  records  of  suc- 
cessful invasion ;  countries  have  been  reduced 
to  powerlessness  before,  particularly  by  Eng- 
land, but  nowhere  is  there  parallel  for  the 
systematization  of  cruelty  that  has  marked 
English  rule  in  Ireland.  Hallam  gives  this 
answer: 

Either  herself  or  in  the  persons  of  her  representa- 
tives, England  exploited  Ireland  as  a  dependency,  a 
conquered  country,  from  which  nothing  could  be 
feared,  from  which  nothing  could  be  hoped ;  a  country 
that  was  done  for,  that  could  never  revive,  and  towards 
which  the  best  policy  to  pursue  was  to  draw  from  it 
as  large  a  tribute  as  possible,  of  men  for  the  army,  and 
of  money  for  the  Empire.  Thus,  when  all  is  said,  the 
Irish  policy  of  England  may,  perhaps,  be  found  to  be 
insphed  not  so  much  by  hatred  or  vindictiveness  as 
by  selfish  indifference,  narrowness  of  view,  and  im- 
perfect understanding.  But  is  this  the  whole  explana- 
tion? Can  we  not  push  the  matter  a  stage  further? 
When  we  look  at  the  sequence  of  events  since  the 
Great  Famine;  when  we  recognize  that  England  has 
always  shrunk  from  taking  any  definite  or  decisive 
step  in  Ireland,  that  she  has  toyed  with  problems  with- 
out seriously  seeking  to  solve  them,  that  she  has  ever 
been  satisfied  to  exploit  the  sister  island  intellectually 
and  economically — can  we  not  go  on  to  say  that  at 
.bottom  the  English  (Gladstone  and  his  followers 

108 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

always  excepted)  have  been  influenced  by  the  idea  of 
merely  marking  time  till  the  sorely  stricken  nation 
might  sink  into  dissolution;  that  they  are  waiting  till, 
when  Ireland  is  drained  of  her  ancient  inhabitants — • 
some  lost  by  emigration,  others  by  Anglicization — ■ 
the  Irish  question  will,  in  measurable  time,  disappear 
of  its  own  accord? 

One  shrinks  from  the  acceptance  of  this 
explanation,  for  while  there  has  always  been 
'^  money  in  it'^  for  England,  what  with  heavy 
taxation  and  laws  compelling  Irish  purchase 
of  English  manufactures;  while  the  Tory 
party  is  dependent  upon  the  ^^  Irish  ques- 
tion'^ for  existence,  and  while  English  rule 
in  Ireland  provides  places  for  some  100,000 
officeholders,  comxmon  respect  for  the  decen- 
cies of  human  nature  rejects  these  sordid 
considerations  as  the  motive  behind  Eng- 
land's Irish  policy.  Herbert  Spencer,  per- 
haps, gives  a  better,  fairer  answer  in  this 
quotation  from  his  Study  of  Sociology: 

When  antagonism  has  bred  hatred  towards  another 
nation,  and  has  consequently  bred  a  desire  to  justify 
the  hatred  by  ascribing  hateful  characters  to  members 
of  that  nation,  it  invariably  happens  that  the  political 
arrangements  under  which  they  live,  the  religion  they 
profess,  and  the  habits  peculiar  to  them,  become  asso- 
ciated   in    thought   with   these   hateful    characters; 

109 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

become  themselves  hateful,  and  cannot,  therefore, 
have  their  natures  studied  with  the  calmness  required 
by  science. 

In  the  beginning  the  English  hated  the 
Irish  for  their  stubborn  refusal  to  accept 
defeat;  out  of  this  hatred,  and  the  added 
desire  to  break  down  the  resistance  of  Ire- 
land, abominable  courses  of  conduct  were 
adopted:  their  own  sense  of  shame,  as  well 
as  fear  of  the  world's  opinion,  impelled  the 
English  to  adopt  a  policy  of  slander,  the 
^^ ascription  of  hateful  characters, ''  in  order 
to  justify  themselves  to  their  own  souls  as 
well  as  to  onlooking  nations;  in  time  they 
came  to  believe  their  own  slanders,  and  out 
of  the  belief  came  new  cruelties — a  circle  of 
viciousness  complete  in  every  detail.  If  they 
treated  the  Irish  savagely,  it  was  because  the 
Irish  were  '^ savages";  if  they  murdered  the 
Irish,  it  was  because  the  Irish  were  ^^mur- 
derers''; if  they  robbed  the  Irish,  it  was 
because  the  Irish  were  '' robbers."  This 
habit  of  thought,  cultivated  for  seven  cen- 
turies, has  burned  into  the  subconsciousness 
of  the  British.  Even  Macaulay,  with  his 
clear  mind,  was  so  influenced  by  traditional 
prejudice  as  to  write  that  ''there  could  not 
be  equality  between  men  who  lived  in  houses 

110 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

and  men  who  lived  in  sties,  between  men 
who  are  fed  on  bread  and  men  who  are  fed 
on  potatoes."  It  did  not  occur  to  him  that 
the  Irish  lived  in  sties  because  they  were 
not  allowed  to  own  land  or  to  build  houses, 
and  that  they  ate  potatoes  because  nothing 
else  could  be  grown  on  the  barren  hillsides 
to  which  the  English  invaders  banished  them. 
He  forgot,  or  chose  to  forget,  that  not  until 
1771  was  the  rare  concession  made  that 
allowed  Catholics  to  take  a  long  lease  on 
fifty  acres  of  bog.  If  it  were  too  deep  or 
marshy  to  build  on,  permission  was  granted 
to  have  half  an  acre  of  soUd  land  on  which  to 
build  a  home,  but  with  the  proviso  that  the 
bog  should  be  at  least  four  feet  deep  and  that 
it  should  not  be  nearer  than  a  mile  to  any 
market  town. 

Sydney  Smith,  remarkable  for  insight  as 
well  as  courage,  saw  to  the  heart  of  the  Eng- 
lish policy,  and  scourged  his  fellow-Britons 
with  the  bitter  words: 

Before  you  refer  the  turbulence  of  the  Irish  to  in- 
curable defects  in  their  character,  tell  me  if  you  have 
treated  them  as  friends  and  as  equals.  Have  you 
protected  their  commerce?  Have  you  respected  their 
religion?  Have  you  been  as  anxious  for  their  free- 
dom as  your  own?    Nothing  of  all  this.     What  then? 

9  111 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Why,  you  have  confiscated  the  territorial  surface  of 
the  country  twice  over;  you  have  massacred  and 
exported  her  inhabitants;  you  have  deprived  four- 
fifths  of  them  of  every  civil  privilege;  you  have  made 
her  commerce  and  manufactures  slavishly  subordinate 
to  your  own.  And  yet,  you  say,  the  hatred  which  the 
Irish  bear  you  is  the  result  of  an  original  turbulence 
of  character,  and  of  a  primitive,  obdurate  wildness, 
utterly  incapable  of  civilization.  .  .  .  When  I  hear 
any  man  talk  of  an  unalterable  law,  the  only  effect  it 
produces  upon  me  is  to  convince  me  that  he  is  an  un- 
alterable fool. 

This  policy  of  cruelty  and  oppression,  how- 
ever, is  no  longer  ^^ British''  in  the  sense  that 
it  expresses  the  attitude  of  the  people  of  the 
British  Empire.  Just  as  Canada,  Australia, 
New  Zealand,  South  Africa,  and  every  other 
colony  has  declared  in  favor  of  Home  Rule 
for  Ireland,  so  does  the  great  body  of  Eng- 
lishmen stand  willing  to  redress  Irish  wrongs. 
The  House  of  Commons,  representing  the 
English  people,  voted  for  Home  Rule  in 
Gladstone's  day,  and  again  in  1912,  1913, 
and  1914  in  the  face  of  Ulster's  threats,  as 
plain  a  manifestation  of  popular  will  as  could 
have  been  recorded. 

It  is  the  Tory  party  that  carried  on  the 
tradition  of  hatred,  the  ancient  policy  of 
force  and  rapacity;  it  is  the  House  of  Lords, 

112 


TWO  CENTURIES  OF  IRISH  REBELLION 

the  '^ruling  class/'  that  stands  between  Ire- 
land and  justice,  just  as  it  stands  between 
the  great  masses  and  every  social  reform 
prompted  by  progress.  It  is  this  truth  that 
is  being  realized  by  English  labor,  and  it  is 
in  the  full  realization,  with  its  inevitable 
consequences,  that  the  Irish  question  will 
find  its  just  answer. 


•f  - 


Chapter  V 
I  The  ''Ulster  Problem''- 

IT  has  been  seen  that  Ulster  stood  in  1914 
as  England's  excuse  for  the  repudiation  of 
its  Home  Rule  agreement.  Ulster  stands 
to-day  as  England's  only  avowed  reason  for 
refusing  to  grant  Ireland  any  measure  of 
seK-govemment.  Ulster  ^^ prefers  death"  to 
Home  Rule,  and  England  cannot  find  it 
in  her  heart  to  ^^ coerce"  the  loyal  subjects 
that  cling  to  the  Crown  with  such  sublime 
devotion. 

With  the  British  government  as  an  inter- 
preting voice,  the  world  knows  little  enough 
of  Irish  history  as  a  whole,  while  as  for  Irish 
internal  affairs,  ignorance  is  so  profound  as 
to  be  almost  solemn.  The  average  American, 
for  instance,  has  a  general  impression  that 
Ulster  is  at  least  half  of  Ireland;  that  it 
is  settled  solidly  by  Scotch  Presbjrterians, 
worthy  people,  even  if  somewhat  inclined  to 
take  Hfe  gloomily;  that  it  is  a  unit  against 

114 


THE  '^  ULSTER  PROBLEM '' 

Home  Rule;  and,  even  when  sympathetic 
with  the  Irish  cause,  he  is  apt  to  feel  that 
Ulster  presents  a  ''very  serious  problem/' 
This  is  the  view  that  England  desires  the 
world  to  take,  and  it  has  diffused  this  point 
of  view  very  carefully  and  cleverly  by 
written  and  spoken  word  until  it  has  taken 
hold  of  the  subconscious  thought  of  the  great 
majority  of  people.  What,  then,  are  the 
facts?  The  Ulster  claim  to  special  and  pre- 
ferred treatment,  as  set  forth  by  its  leaders 
and  assented  to  by  the  British  government, 
may  be  fairly  summarized  as  follows: 

(1)  Ulster  is  a  homogeneous  Unionist  and 
Protestant  community. 

(2)  Ulster  has  all  the  wealth  and  industry 
of  Ireland,  and  Home  Rule  would  merely 
place  thrift  and  enterprise  at  the  mercy  of 
ignorance  and  improvidence. 

(3)  The  prosperity  of  Ulster  is  due  entirely 
to  EngUsh  rule,  and,  rather  than  be  divorced 
from  this  beneficent  sovereignty,  Ulster  will 
fight  to  the  death. 

(4)  Home  Rule  would  subject  this  Protes- 
tant minority  to  the  despotism  of  Rome  and 
the  bigotries  of  the  Roman  Catholic  majority. 

Ulster  is  one  of  the  four  provinces  of  Ire- 
land and  contains  nine  counties.     The  other 

115 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

three  provinces — Leinster,  Munster,  and 
Connaught — have  twenty-three  counties. 
The  population  of  Ulster  is  1,581,696;  that  of 
Ireland  as  a  whole  is  4,375,554.  It  is  ad- 
mittedly the  case,  therefore,  that  the  few  are 
blocking  the  will  of  the  many;  it  is  this  stub- 
bom  resistance  of  a  minority  that  goes  out  to 
the  world  as  evidence  of  ^^  Irish  inabihty  to 
agree.''  Acceptance  of  any  such  doctrine 
would  have  prevented  the  formation  of  the 
United  States  of  America;  if  accepted  to-day 
in  the  case  of  new  nations  there  wiU  be  no 
Czecho-Slovakia,  no  Poland,  no  Jugo-Slavic 
state,  and  Alsace-Lorraine  must  be  broken 
into  French  pieces  and  German  bits,  for  in 
all  are  bitter  minorities  of  no  small  size. 

Also,  viewed  obviously,  there  is  amaze- 
ment, to  say  the  least,  in  the  fact  that  none 
of  those  most  prominent  in  the  ^^  Ulster 
rebellion"  has  any  real  connection  with 
Ulster  by  birth  or  residence.  Sir  Edward 
Carson  did  not  even  represent  an  Ulster  con- 
stituency until  put  up  for  a  Belfast  seat  in 
December,  1918;  Sir  Frederick  E.  Smith, 
the  ^'Galloper  of  Ulster,"  is  an  English  law- 
yer; Bonar  Law  is  a  Scotch-Canadian;  Gen- 
eral Richardson  and  General  Wilson,  who 
organized  and  drilled  the  Ulster  rebels,  are 

116 


73 

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0 


THE  '^ULSTER  PROBLEM" 

Englishmen;  Walter  Long  has  no  Ulster  con- 
nection, and  Mr.  Balfour,  Lord  Cecil,  Lord 
Curzon,  Lord  Milner,  and  scores  of  other 
'^Ulster  leaders''  are  English  through  and 
through. 

Since  Ulster,  however,  is  set  out  as  dis- 
tinctive, isolated,  and  peculiar,  fairness  de- 
mands that  general  consideration  be  put 
aside  in  favor  of  an  analysis  of  the  clauses  of 
its  case.  First,  as  to  the  claim  that  Ulster  is  a 
'^homogeneous  Unionist  and  Protestant  com- 
munity'' unanimously  hostile  to  any  scheme 
of  Irish  self-government. 

In  December,  1918,  an  English  general 
election  was  held,  and  while  the  Unionists  in 
Ireland  banked  a  solid  front  in  support  of 
unchanged  and  unchanging  British  rule,  the 
opposition  split  into  two  camps.  The  Na- 
tionalists went  before  the  people  with  their 
usual  and  traditional  demand  for  Home  Rule. 
Sinn  Fein  declared  that  forty  years  of  futile 
begging  showed  the  folly  of  parliamentary 
methods;  announced  that  their  candidates, 
if  elected,  would  assemble  in  Dublin,  not 
London,  and  asked  votes  on  the  bold  plat- 
form of  an  Irish  republic.  An  analysis  of  the 
returns  shows  these  results. 

Leinster,  Munster,  and  Connaught  went 

117 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

almost  as  a  unit  for  Sinn  Fein.  The  Nation- 
alists were  annihilated,  and  the  Unionists, 
frankly  confessing  an  overwhelming  majority 
that  made  contests  farcical,  did  not  put  up 
a  single  candidate  in  twenty-two  counties. 
In  Dublin  County,  out  of  four  seats,  they 
captured  one  in  a  carefully  gerrymandered 
district,  the  only  Unionist  fight  and  the  only 
Unionist  victory  in  the  twenty-three  counties 
outside  of  Ulster.  This  result  should  resolve 
any  doubt  as  to  where  three  Irish  provinces, 
at  least,  stand  with  respect  to  British  rule. 

A  study  of  the  Ulster  vote  reveals  that  the 
Unionists  did  not  contest  in  Cavan,  the  Sinn 
Fein  taking  both  seats  without  a  struggle. 

In  Donegal,  with  four  seats,  the  Unionists 
contested  only  one,  losing  handily  to  a 
Nationalist.  The  Unionist  vote  for  the 
county,  therefore,  was  4,797  against  a  Sinn 
Fein-Nationalist  total  of  39,041. 

In  Monaghan,  with  two  seats,  the  Union- 
ists attempted  one  contest  only,  losing  badly, 
and  Sinn  Fein  swept  the  county.  The  total 
vote:  Unionist,  4,497;  Sinn  Fein-Nationalist, 
21,479. 

This  showing — and  there  has  never  been 
any  other  election  result  for  forty  years — 
lifts  Cavan,  Monaghan,  and  Donegal  out  of 

118 


THE   ^'ULSTER  PROBLEM" 

'^ rebel  Ulster^'  instantly  and  authoritatively, 
leaving  only  six  counties  to  be  considered. 

In  Tyrone  the  Nationalists  captured  East 
by  11,661  against  6,681;  in  West  Tyrone 
Sinn  Fein  won  by  10,442  against  7,696,  and 
in  South  the  Unionists  won  by  10,616  against 
a  combined  Sinn  Fein  and  Nationalist  vote 
of  8,039.  Two  seats  out  of  three  for  Home 
Rule  and  an  Irish  vote  of  30,086  against 
24,993  Unionist  votes. 

Fermanagh  went  fifty-fifty,  Unionists  and 
Sinn  Fein  each  capturing  one  seat,  but  the 
Home  Rule  vote  was  12,909  against  11,292 
for  the  Unionists. 

By  the  law  of  majorities,  Tyrone  and  Fer- 
managh are  also  lifted  out  of  ^^  rebel  Ulster '^ 
along  with  Cavan,  Donegal,  and  Monaghan, 
leaving  only  four  counties  to  be  considered. 

In  Antrim  the  Unionists  swept  all  before 
them,  winning  four  seats  with  a  total  vote  of 
48,808  against  8,643  for  Sinn  Fein.  In  Down 
the  Unionists  gained  four  seats  and  the  Na- 
tionalists one,  the  total  being  41,987  to  21,969. 

In  Armagh  the  Unionists  captured  two  seats 
with  a  total  vote  of  18,670  against  12,962. 

Also  in   Derry,   two   seats  going  to   the 

Unionists  with  19,472  votes  against  11,357. 

The  city  of  Derry,  however,  always  a  Union- 
no 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

ist  stronghold,  and  the  ^^  Protestant  heart  of 
Protestant  Ulster/'  was  won  by  Sinn  Fein, 
the  vote  being  7,455  to  7,020. 

In  Belfast  the  Unionists  won  eight  seats 
and  the  Nationalists  one,  the  Unionist  vote 
being  79,377  against  39,947  for  the  opposi- 
tion. 

So  much  for  the  claim  of  the  ^^  solid  Union- 
ist Ulster '^  for  which  Carson  and  Mr.  Balfour 
passionately  demanded  a  '^clean-cut  separa- 
tion.'' Three  counties  overwhelmingly  anti- 
Unionist  and  two  counties  giving  substantial 
majorities  against  English  rule,  leaving  four 
counties  only  for  the  Unionists,  and  even 
heavy  opposition  votes  in  them. 

The  following  figures  show  the  anti-Eng- 
lish, pro-Ireland  percentages  in  the  nine  Ul- 
ster counties  and  the  two  cities: 

Cavan 100 

Donegal 89 

Monaghan 83 

Fermanagh 53 

Tyrone 54 

Antrim 15 

Derry 36 

Armagh 41 

Down 34 

Belfast 48 

Derry  City 51 

120 


UNieN>«T 

VHxemVT 


MAP   OF   IRELAND   SHOWING   PRESENT   POLITICAL   BOUNDARIES 


THE  ^'ULSTER  PROBLEM" 

The  following  oflBcial  religious  census  also 
has  direct  bearing  upon  the  claim  that  Ulster 
is  solidly  Protestant,  and  that  by  '^Protes- 
tant" is  meant  Scotch  Presbyterian: 

County  Catholic       Protestant     Presbyterian  Methodist 

Antrim 118,449  128,552  188,018  20,377 

Ai-magh 54,147  38,867  18,962  5,010 

Cavan 74,188  12,954  2,920  768 

Donegal 132,943  17,975  15,064  1,697 

DowTi 78,946  78,695  116,971  11,497 

Fermanagh....  34,749  21,121  1,265  3,995 

Londonderry...  64,436  27,080  43,191  1,939 

Monaghan 53,341  8,644  8,635  389 

Tyrone 78,935  32,283  26,540  2,818 

Total 690,134       366,171       421,566       48,490 

Passing  to  the  second  assertion,  that  Ulster 
has  all  the  '^ wealth  and  enterprise,"  and 
therefore  objects  to  the  domination  of  pov- 
erty and  idleness,  the  answers  to  this  are 
matters  of  official  record : 

On  the  face  of  the  tax  returns  DubUn's 
gross  annual  value  of  property  exceeds  £11,- 
000,000,  while  that  of  Belfast  is  less  than 
£6,400,000.  Dublin  pays  an  income  tax  of 
£360,000,  which  is  more  than  £150,000  above 
that  of  Belfast. 

The  governmental  ratable  value  of  Ulster 
is  only  72  shillings;  that  of  Leinster  is  98 
shillings.  The  Ulster  rate,  while  in  truth  a 
pound  higher  than  that  of  Connaught,   is 

121 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

only  a  fraction  above  that  of  Munster.  So 
Ulster,  instead  of  being  the  richest  province, 
is,  in  reality,  a  poor  second,  with  Munster 
only  a  breath  behind. 

Now  for  the  third  claim,  that  Ulster,  out 
of  its  ancient  love  for  England,  will  fight 
rather  than  submit  to  separation  from  the 
prosperity  and  justice  that  have  been  part 
and  parcel  of  British  rule.  This  devotion, 
when  subjected  to  study,  appears  to  be  more 
oratorical  than  actual,  more  in  evidence  on 
the  hustings  than  in  the  emigration  statistics. 
The  population  of  Ulster  has  fallen  over  one- 
third  in  the  last  fifty  years,  and  even  as  late 
as  1914  more  people  emigrated  from  Ulster 
than  any  other  Irish  province.  Between 
1861  and  1910,  ^4oyal  subjects''  to  the  num- 
ber of  807,567  conquered  their  passion  for 
English  rule  sufficiently  to  enable  them  to 
leave  Ulster  for  homes  in  other  countries,  the 
majority  coming  to  democratic  America.  It 
also  stands  proved  that  while  Sir  Edward 
Carson  declared  in  1914  that  he  had  447,204 
signatures  to  the  Ulster  Covenant — ^4oyal 
subjects''  ready  to  kill  and  be  killed  in  de- 
fense of  British  rule — only  10,000  Protestant 
soldiers  volunteered  from  Ulster  in  the  first 
six  months  of  a  war  that  meant  England'^ 

m 


THE  ''ULSTER  PROBLEM^' 

life  or  death,  and  by  1916  the  number  had 
only  increased  to  40,000. 

The  most  suspicious  feature  of  the  devo- 
tion, however,  is  its  newness  and  the  fact 
that  it  has  no  historical  background.  More 
than  any  other  province  in  Ireland,  Ulster 
has  hated  English  sovereignty,  and  revolted 
against  it,  until  there  is  not  an  inch  of  its  soil 
that  is  not  red  with  the  blood  of  rebels. 
Time  and  again  the  altar-fires  of  Irish  free- 
dom would  have  turned  into  cold  ashes  but 
for  the  indomitable  Ulster  spirit,  carrying  on 
always  against  invasion  and  oppression. 

Godfrey  O^Donnell,  Lord  of  Tyrconnell, 
led  his  saffron-shirted  kerns  against  the 
mailed  warriors  of  Maurice  Fitzgerald,  the 
Norman;  Shane  O^Neill,  King  of  Ulster,  beat 
back  every  English  force  from  1551  to  his 
death  in  1567;  Hugh  O'Neill,  Earl  of  Tyrone, 
and  Hugh  O'DonneU,  Lord  of  Tyrconnell, 
came  near  to  expelling  the  English  between 
1595  and  1603;  Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  nephew  of 
the  great  Hugh,  led  Ulster  to  rebellion  again 
in  1641,  and  for  seven  years  successfully 
pitted  his  genius  and  the  courage  of  the 
Irish  against  English  might.  Even  after  the 
two  ruthless  settlements  by  James  I  and 
Cromwell,  the  Irish  being  killed,  sold  into 

123 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

slavery,  or  driven  into  hiding,  and  their  land 
given  to  Scotch  and  English  colonists,  the 
''red  hand  of  Ulster"  lifted  time  and  again 
in  stark  rebellion.  In  1698  we  find  WiUiam 
Molyneux  demanding  Irish  independence  and 
bitterly  arraigning  English  rule  for  its  tyran- 
nies and  brutal  destruction  of  Irish  industry, 
his  book  not  only  being  censured  by  the 
House  of  Commons,  but  burned  by  the  com- 
mon hangman  as  well. 

Location  of  the  reason  affords  few  diffi- 
culties. In  the  first  place,  the  assimilative 
power  of  the  Celt  is  without  parallel.  Even 
as  the  Danes  and  Normans  were  ''Irishized," 
so  were  English  and  Scotch  absorbed.  In 
the  second  place,  the  colonist  soon  found  that 
England's  oppressions  did  not  press  upon  the 
Irish  alone,  but  weighed  on  all  Ireland,  alien 
as  well  as  native.  The  Test  Act  and  the 
Schism  Act  were  enforced  against  Presby- 
terians and  all  other  Nonconformists,  and 
in  addition,  as  Green  asserts,  laws  were  made 
'Ho  annihilate  Irish  commerce  and  to  ruin 
Irish  agriculture.  Statutes  passed  by  the  jeal- 
ousy of  English  landowners  forbade  the  ex- 
port of  Irish  cattle  or  sheep  to  English  ports. 
The  export  of  wool  was  forbidden,  lest  it 
might  interfere  with  the  profits  of  English 

124 


THE  '^ULSTER  PROBLEM 


>j 


wool-growers.  Poverty  was  thus  added  to 
the  curse  of  misgovernment,  and  poverty 
deepened  with  the  rapid  growth  of  the  native 
population,  till  famine  turned  the  country 
into  a  hell.'' 

Belfast,  heart  of  the  wool  industry  and  a 
city  that  should  have  been  as  dear  to  William 
as  his  crown,  was  struck  desolate,  40,000  of 
its  people  being  doomed  to  idleness  almost 
in  a  day.  The  manufacture  of  beer,  malt, 
gunpowder,  hats,  sail-cloth,  and  ironware 
was  destroyed  and  a  debased  coinage  drove 
all  the  silver  out  of  the  coimtry.  Ruined 
industries,  religious  persecution,  exorbitant 
rents,  cruel  and  oppressive  laws,  all  joined  to 
crush  Ulster  as  well  as  Munster,  Leinster,  and 
Connaught,  and  northern  Irish,  even  more 
than  the  Catholics  of  the  south  and  west, 
emigrated  to  America  in  search  of  freedom. 
Ulster  men,  fighting  with  Washington,  were 
England's  most  implacable  foes  when  the 
colonies  rose  at  last  against  the  tyrannies  of 
George  III. 

It  was  Ulster  that  roused  enthusiasm  for 
the  Revolution  until  Pitt  openly  admitted 
that  Ireland  was  behind  the  American  cause 
to  a  man.  The  Volunteers,  a  great  force  that 
wrung  concession  after  concession  from  Eng- 

10  125 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

land,  was  an  Ulster  movement  led  by  the 
Earl  of  Charlemont;  an  Ulster  Protestant. 
The  United  Irishmen,  formed  by  Wolfe  Tone 
in  1791,  was  a  ^^ union  of  Irishmen  of  every 
religious  persuasion,  in  order  to  obtain  a 
complete  reform  of  the  legislature,  found- 
ed on  principles  of  civil,  political,  and  relig- 
ious liberty/'  Tone  himself  was  an  Ulster 
Protestant ;  so  were  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald, 
O'Connor,  the  Emmets,  and  Dickson.  The 
movement  started  in  Belfast,  and  its  mem- 
bership at  the  outset  was  almost  exclu- 
sively Presbyterian.  The  revolution  of  the 
United  Irishmen  in  1798,  that  cost  70,000 
lives,  had  separation  from  England  as  its 
object,  and  Ulster  was  the  heart  of  the 
rebellion. 

Again,  in  1848  the  ^'red  hand  of  Ulster" 
waved  its  signal  to  Ireland.  John  Mitchel, 
an  Ulster  Protestant,  by  his  advocacy  of  re- 
bellion and  total  separation  from  England, 
brought  about  the  uprising  that  was  put 
down  in  blood.  John  Philpott  Curran  was 
an  Ulster  man,  and  Isaac  Butt,  father  of  the 
Home  Rule  movement,  was  a  descendant  of 
a  Cromwellian  soldier.  At  every  point  in 
history  Ulster  stands  as  the  vital  force  of 
Irish  rebellion,  the  most  implacable  in  its 

126 


THE   '^ ULSTER  PROBLEM'^ 

hatred  of  English  rule  and  in  its  demand  for 
separation  and  Irish  independence. 

As  for  the  fourth  and  last  claim,  that 
English  rule  alone  saves  Protestant  Ulster 
from  Catholic  bigotry  and  oppression,  this 
claim  carries  with  it  the  obvious  implication 
that  all  Protestants  are  against  Irish  indepen- 
dence, and  that  between  the  Protestants  and 
Catholics  of  Ireland  stretches  a  traditional 
guK  that  cannot  be  bridged.  Even  as  the 
election  returns,  however,  prove  that  Ulster 
is  as  much  Catholic  as  Protestant,  and  more 
Nationalistic  than  Unionistic,  so  do  facts  of 
record  destroy  the  religious  bugbear.  In  the 
first  place,  the  Home  Rule  bill  that  England 
repudiated,  by  reason  of  ^^  Protestant  Ill- 
sterns  religious  forebodings,  ^^  contained  this 
sweeping  prohibition  against  bigotry  and  in- 
tolerance : 

^'In  the  exercise  of  their  power  to  make 
laws  under  this  act  the  Irish  Parliament 
shall  not  make  a  law  so  as  directly  or  in- 
directly to  establish  or  endow  any  religion, 
or  prohibit  or  restrict  the  free  exercise  thereof, 
or  give  a  preference,  privilege  or  advantage, 
or  impose  any  disability  or  disadvantage,  on 
account  of  religious  belief  or  religious  or 
ecclesiastical  status,  or  make  any  religious 

127  ^     . 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

belief  or  religious  ceremony  a  condition  of 
the  validity  of  any  marriage,  or  affect  preju- 
dicially the  right  of  any  child  to  attend  a 
school  receiving  public  money  without  at- 
tending the  religious  instruction  at  that 
school,  or  alter  the  constitution  of  any  re- 
ligious body/'  etc. 

This  clause  alone  stamps  Ulster's  ^^  religious 
forebodings"  as  unadulterated  buncombe. 
In  the  second  place,  while  Ireland  is  notorious 
for  its  religious  persecutions  and  sectarian  in- 
tolerances, it  is  seldom  indeed  that  a  Catholic 
has  been  the  persecutor  and  the  bigot.  From 
the  days  of  Henry  VII  every  Protestant 
ruler  of  England  attempted  to  crush  Irish 
Catholicism  as  weU  as  Irish  independence, 
and  not  even  the  savageries  of  earlier  kings 
were  more  brutal  than  the  legislative  oppres- 
sions of  ^'civiHzed''  monarchs.  To  quote 
Green: 

The  history  of  Ireland  during  the  fifty  years  that 
followed  its  conquest  by  William  the  Third  is  one 
which  no  Englishman  can  recall  without  shame. 
After  the  surrender  of  Limerick  every  Catholic  Irish- 
man, and  there  were  five  Irish  Catholics  to  every 
Irish  Protestant,  was  treated  as  a  stranger  and  a 
foreigner  in  his  own  country.  The  House  of  Lords, 
the  House  of  Commons,  the  magistracy,  all  corporate 

128 


THE  ^^ ULSTER  PROBLEM" 

offices  in  town,  all  ranks  in  the  army,  the  bench,  the 
bar,  the  whole  administration  of  government  or  jus- 
tice, were  closed  against  Catholics.  The  very  right 
of  voting  for  their  representatives  in  Parhament  was 
denied  them.  Few  CathoUc  landowners  had  been 
left  by  the  sweeping  confiscations  which  had  followed 
the  successive  revolts  of  the  island,  and  oppressive 
laws  turned  the  immense  majority  into  hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water  to  their  Protestant 
masters 


Catholic  schoolmasters  were  outlawed  and 
Catholic  parents  even  forbidden  to  send 
their  children  to  any  foreign  land  to  be  edu- 
cated; land  owned  by  Catholics  was  confisca- 
ted; no  Catholics  were  permitted  to  possess 
arms  of  any  kind;  parish  priests  were  per- 
mitted to  remain  only  on  condition  of  regis- 
tering and  giving  security  for  good  behavior, 
and  all  others — bishops,  monks,  and  friars — 
were  banished  and  forbidden  to  return  under 
penalty  of  death.  Rewards  were  offered  for 
their  capture,  and  Catholics  were  required  to 
pay  these  rewards;  family  discord  was  at- 
tempted by  a  law  that  the  eldest  son  of  a 
Catholic,  by  proclaiming  himself  a  Protes- 
tant, could  become  the  owner  of  his  father's 
land;  no  Catholic  could  act  as  a  guardian;  no 
Catholic  was  permitted  to  purchase  land, 

129 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

and  if  it  could  be  proved  that  any  Catholic 
tenant  was  making  a  profit  above  one-third 
of  the  rent  a  Protestant  could  take  possession 
of  the  farm. 

The  Test  Act  decreed  that  no  man  could 
hold  office,  either  civil  or  military,  without 
taking  oath  that  the  Catholic  religion  was 
false  and  receiving  the  Sacrament  on  Sun- 
days according  to  the  rites  of  the  Established 
Church.  This  was  followed  by  the  applica- 
tion to  Ireland  of  the  Schism  Act,  providing 
that  no  one  could  teach  school  unless  licensed 
by  a  bishop  of  the  Church  of  England. 
Bishops,  clerg;^'',  and  schoolmasters  defied  the 
laws  that  the  altar-fires  might  not  be  extin- 
guished, and  the  hold  of  the  ^^ sog garth  aroon^^ 
upon  the  Irish  people  traces  back  to  those 
dark  days  when  priest  and  prelate  alike  led 
the  lives  of  hunted  animals  rather  than 
desert  their  flocks. 

Even  as  Catholics  were  persecuted,  so  were 
their  persecutors  favored,  for,  in  Macaulay^s 
bitter  phrase,  the  government  set  up  ^^a  vast 
hierarchy  of  Protestant  archbishops,  bishops, 
and  rectors  who  did  nothing,  and  who,  for 
doing  nothing,  were  paid  out  of  the  spoils  of 
a  Church  loved  and  revered  by  the  great 
body  of  the  people.^'     Ten  Protestant  prel- 

130 


THE   ^'ULSTER  PROBLEM'^ 

ates  were  once  named  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons who  had  left  fortunes  averaging  $1,- 
250,000  apiece.  As  late  as  1860  the  bishops 
held  743,326  acres  of  Ireland.  The  govern- 
mental exaction  of  tithes  amounted  to  about 
$2,500,000  a  year,  with  bishoprics  yielding 
from  $12,000  to  $80,000  annually,  and  for 
700,000  members  of  the  state  religion  there 
were  as  many  parochial  clergymen  as  for  the 
4,500,000  Cathohcs. 

What  Ulster  asks  the  world  to  believe  is 
that  Home  Rule  will  witness  the  instant  in- 
stitution of  Catholic  reprisals  in  revenge  for 
this  record  of  crime  and  shame.  Aside  from 
the  ^^rehgious  liberty'^  clause  in  the  Home 
Rule  biU,  however,  there  is  ample  reassurance 
in  the  character  of  the  Irish  Catholic.  Lecky, 
Protestant  and  Unionist,  but  an  honest  his- 
torian, bears  this  testimony: 

No  feature  in  the  social  history  of  Ireland  is  more 
remarkable  than  the  ahnost  absolute  security  which  the 
Protestant  clergy,  scattered  thinly  over  wild  CathoHc 
districts,  have  usually  enjoyed  during  the  worst 
periods  of  organized  crime  and  the  very  large  measure 
of  respect  and  popularity  they  have  almost  invariably 
commanded  whenever  they  abstained  from  inter- 
fering with  the  religion  of  their  neighbors.  .  .  . 
Among  the  Cathohcs,  at  least,  religious  intolerance 

131 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

has  not  been  a  prevailing  vice,  and  those  who  have 
studied  closely  the  history  and  the  character  of  the 
Irish  people  can  hardly  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  deep 
respect  for  sincere  religion  in  every  form  which  they 
have  commonly  evinced.  .  .  .  It  is  a  memorable  fact 
that  not  a  sinele  Protestant  suffered  for  his  religion 
in  Ireland  during  all  the  period  of  the  Marian  per- 
secution in  England.  The  treatment  of  Bedell  during 
the  savage  outbreak  of  1641,  and  the  Act  establishing 
liberty  of  conscience  passed  by  the  Irish  Parliament 
of  1689  in  the  full  flush  of  the  brief  Catholic  ascend- 
ancy under  James  the  Second,  exhibit  very  remarkably 
this  aspect  of  the  Irish  character. 

There  was,  and  is,  however,  a  reason  for 
this  apart  from  any  amiability  of  character; 
always  and  now  the  Irish  Catholic  realized 
that  his  sufferings  did  not  proceed  from  the 
hatred  of  his  Protestant  brothers,  but  came 
direct  from  England  as  part  of  the  English 
program  of  subjugation. 

Protestants,  too,  saw  this  great  truth,  and 
both  faiths,  without  hatred,  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  through  the  years  in  the  fight  for 
common  independence  and  common  religious 
liberties.  Even  as  every  great  Irish  revolu- 
tion has  had  its  origin  in  Ulster,  so  almost 
every  great  leader  in  the  fight  for  Irish  inde- 
pendence has  been  a  Protestant !  Molyneux, 
Grattan,  Flood,  Lucas,  Dean  Swift,  Hussey 

132 


THE  ^^ ULSTER  PROBLEM" 

Burgh,  Wolfe  Tone,  Earl  Charlemont,  Lord 
Fitzgerald,  Robert  Emmet,  Gavan  Duffy, 
Lord  Plunkett,  Curran,  John  Mitchel,  Thomas 
Davis,  Smith  O^Brien,  John  Martin,  James 
Finton  Lalor,  Isaac  Butt,  Parnell — all  Prot- 
estants, Daniel  O^Connell  and  John  Redmond 
standing  out  as  the  sole  exceptions. 

What  Macaulay  brands  as  ^^a  series  of  bar- 
barous laws  against  Popery  that  made  the 
Statute  Book  of  Ireland  a  proverb  of  infamy 
throughout  Christendom'^  were  fought  al- 
most entirely  by  Protestants,  for  the  Catho- 
lics were  forced  to  silence  by  law,  cell,  and  gal- 
lows. As  a  matter  of  course,  this  generosity 
had  its  result  in  unity,  and  Irish  history  is 
thick  with  instances  conclusive  in  their 
disproof  that  the  ^ ^enmity''  between  Irish 
Protestant  and  Irish  Catholic  is  hereditary 
and  unchangeable. 

The  Ulster  Volunteers,  at  the  very  outset, 
won  partial  liberty  for  the  Presbyterians  by 
the  abolition  of  the  Sacramental  Test,  and  in 
1782  they  forced  the  removal  of  the  last 
grievances  of  the  Protestant  dissenters.  Had 
they  been  actuated  only  by  sectarian  resent- 
ments, the  movement  would  have  died 
straightway,  and  nothing  so  proves  the  Irish 
nationalist  character  of  the  Volunteers  as  the 

133 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

fact  that  they  did  not  pause  with  the  redress 
of  their  own  wrongs,  but  pressed  forward 
instantly  and  indomitably  with  demands  for 
CathoUc  emancipation. 

It  is  as  inspiring  as  it  is  illuminating  to  con- 
trast the  action  of  the  Ulster  Volunteers  in 
1914  with  the  attitude  of  the  Ulster  Volun- 
teers in  1782.  In  this  latter  year  242  dele- 
gates, representing  the  wealth  and  power  of 
Protestant  Ulster,  assembled  at  Dungannon, 
and  passed  this  resolution,  among  others: 

As  men  and  Iiishmen,  as  Christians  and  Protestants, 
we  rejoice  in  the  relaxation  of  the  penal  laws  against 
our  Roman  CathoUc  fellow-subjects;  and  we  con- 
ceive the  measure  to  be  fraught  with  the  happiest 
consequences  to  the  union  and  prosperity  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Ireland. 

It  was  because  of  this  purely  Protestant 
action  that  those  laws  were  repealed  that  for- 
bade Catholic  schoolmasters,  outlawed  bish- 
ops, and  established  Catholic  pales.  Catho- 
lics now  joined  the  Volunteers,  and  it  was 
this  unity  and  this  display  of  force  that 
caused  the  English  Parliament  to  pass  the 
Act  of  Repeal  that  gave  Ireland  an  inde- 
pendent Parliament.  Let  it  be  pointed  out 
also  that,  even  as  there  were  Irish  enthusiasm 

134 


THE   ^'ULSTER  PROBLEM 


ib 


and  Irish  unity,  so  did  bitterness  against 
England  change  ahnost  instantly  into  a  will- 
ingness for  friendship.  Straightway,  as  an 
evidence  of  gratitude,  the  Irish  Parliament 
voted  20,000  men  and  $500,000  to  the  British 
navy. 

In  1782  the  Catholics  of  DubUn,  daring  to 
assemble  for  the  first  time,  addressed  a  peti- 
tion to  the  king,  asking  for  admission  to  the 
rights  of  the  constitution.  As  the  committee 
passed  through  Belfast,  the  Presbyterians 
unhitched  the  horses  from  the  carriage  and 
drew  the  Catholics  through  the  city,  a  Prot- 
estant population  cheering  to  the  very  echo. 
The  Presbyterian  synod  of  Ulster  also  took 
formal  action  in  support  of  the  Catholic  re- 
quest, urging  it  as  just  and  necessary.  In 
the  face  of  this  unity,  the  penal  laws  against 
the  Catholics  were  abated  in  some  degree, 
but  complete  civil  and  religious  liberty  was 
denied  with  aU  the  old  arrogance.  In  at- 
tempting to  win  over  King  George,  Pitt  used 
an  argument  that  is  as  applicable  to-day  as 
then:  ^^The  political  circumstances  under 
which  the  exclusive  laws  originated,'^  he 
wrote,  ^^  arising  from  the  apprehension  of  a 
Popish  Queen  as  successor,  a  disputed  succes- 
sion and  a  foreign  pretender,  a  division  in 

135 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Europe  between  Catholic  and  Protestant 
Powers,  are  no  longer  applicable  to  the  pres- 
ent state  of  things/'  The  king  remained 
adamant,  however,  for,  as  Green  says,  '^His 
bigotry  was  at  one  with  the  bigotry  of  his 
subjects,''  and  Pitt  surrendered. 

Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  English  and  a  Prot- 
estant, but  the  Irish  Catholics  gave  him  love 
and  admiration  for  his  justice,  and  when  Pitt 
recalled  him  the  whole  of  Ireland  went  into 
mourning.  All  shops  were  closed,  industry 
ceased  for  the  day,  and  crepe  hung  on  every 
door  to  express  a  people's  grief. 

The  United  Irishmen,  Protestant  Wolfe 
Tone's  Protestant  organization,  had  ^'Catho- 
lic Emancipation"  as  one  of  its  fundamental 
principles,  and  the  50,000  men  struck  down  in 
the  revolution  of  1798  died  for  religious  Hb- 
erty  as  well  as  Irish  freedom. 

O'ConneU,  offered  Catholic  emancipation 
as  a  bribe  for  his  support  of  the  Act  of  Union, 
declared  that  he  ''would  rather  confide  in  the 
justice  of  my  brethren,  the  Protestants  of  Ire- 
land, who  have  already  liberated  me,  than 
lay  my  country  at  the  feet  of  foreigners." 

Scores  of  similar  instances  can  be  cited  to 
show  the  unity  and  fraternity  that  grew  and 
flourished  between  Irish  Protestant  and  Irish 


THE  '^ULSTER  PROBLEM" 

Catholic  in  the  hundred  years  that  inter- 
vened between  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  and 
the  formation  of  the  Society  of  Orangemen  in 
1795.  It  was  the  organization  of  this  body 
that  marks  the  rise  of  rehgious  factionahsm 
in  Ireland,  not  as  a  natural  evolution  in  any 
degree,  but  purely  as  a  product  of  Pitt's  man- 
ufacture. He  brought  the  Orangemen  into 
being,  paid  them  and  protected  them  in  their 
outrages,  out  of  cold-blooded  intent  to  break 
up  the  Irish  unity  that  threatened  to  defeat 
his  Act  of  Union.  In  proof  of  this,  witness 
this  naive  excerpt  from  historical  records: 

About  the  same  time  a  nmnber  of  delegates  from 
the  Orangemen  met  in  the  town  of  Armagh,  and  en- 
tered into  resolutions,  which  they  published:  In  these 
resolutions  they  recommended  to  the  gentlemen  of 
fortune  to  open  a  subscription,  declaring,  ^^That  the 
two  guineas  allowed  them  'per  man  by  Government  was 
not  sufficient  to  purchase  clothes  and  accoutrements! 

Leaders  of  Protestant  and  Catholic 
thought  were  never  deceived  nor  demoralized, 
but  the  peasantry  of  both  faiths,  brutalized 
by  ignorance  and  poverty,  gave  themselves 
over  easily  enough  to  Pitt's  abominable 
plan.  Nothing,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  more 
safe  than  the  assertion  that  no  honest  person 

J.37 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

can  study  the  history  of  Ireland  without 
coming  to  the  firm  conviction  that  reUgious 
bigotry  is  not  inherent,  but  entirely  artificial, 
and  that  Catholics  and  Protestants  will  re- 
turn to  their  old  unity  and  amity  when  the 
disruptive  influences  of  EngUsh  poUtics  are 
removed. 

While  in  Ireland  I  gave  particular  study  to 
this  question  of  religious  hatred,  and  from  no 
man — Ulster,  Nationalist,  or  Sinn  Fein — 
did  I  receive  any  other  answer  than  ^^  Bun- 
combe.'' The  Protestant  Archbishop  of  Dub- 
lin and  other  Protestant  prelates  bore  tes- 
timony similar  to  that  of  Lecky,  and  even 
Ulster  rebels  privately  and  grinningly  con- 
fided to  me  that  their  ^^ religious  forebodings" 
were  entirely  part  of  the  ^'political  game/' 

As  for  the  cry  that  '^Home  Rule  means 
Rome  Rule,''  the  facts  are  that  Rome  has 
almost  unfailingly  maintained  an  attitude  of 
antagonism  to  Irish  independence,  or,  to 
state  the  case  more  fairly,  Rome,  standing 
for  ^4aw  and  order,"  has  almost  invariably 
discountenanced  the  rebellions  that  were 
necessarily  the  expression  of  Ireland's  pas- 
sion for  freedom.  And  never  once  has  any 
attempt  of  Rome  to  interfere  in  Irish  politics 

met  with  anything  but  bitter  resistance  from 

188 


THE   '^ULSTER  PROBLEM'' 

Catholic  bishops,  clergy,  and  laity.  A  Pope 
entered  into  secret  agreement  to  give  the 
English  crown  the  right  to  veto  appointments 
to  the  Irish  episcopacy,  but  Daniel  O'Connell 
thundered  the  answer  for  all  his  faith  when 
he  cried,  ^^We  take  our  religion  from  Rome 
but  our  politics  from  Ireland,"  and  bishops 
and  clergy  joined  with  him  to  defeat  the 
proposal. 

When  two  Catholic  curates  started  a  fight 
for  ^^fair  rents,  tenant  right,  and  employ- 
ment" the  movement  was  crushed  by  Arch- 
bishop CuUen  in  1855.  In  1879  Rome  tried 
to  break  up  the  Pamell  meetings  in  favor  of 
land  reform,  and  in  1883  the  full  power  of 
the  Vatican  was  hurled  against  Pamell.  The 
Prefect  of  the  Propaganda  Fide,  writing- to 
the  Irish  bishops,  said,  ^^It  is  lawful  for  the 
Irish  to  seek  redress  for  their  grievances  and 
to  strive  for  their  rights,  but  always  at  the 
same  time  observing  the  divine  maxim  to 
seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  jus- 
tice and  remembering  also  that  it  is  wicked  to 
further  any  cause,  no  matter  how  just,  by 
illegal  means."  The  point  of  the  letter,  how- 
ever, was  a  direct  order  to  the  bishops  to  op- 
pose the  collection  of  a  testimonial  fund  for 
Parnell.     Catholic  Ireland  rose  en  masse  in 

139 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

support  of  the  Protestant  leader  with  the  cry, 
"Make  Peter's  pence  into  PamelFs  pounds/' 
and,  as  the  result,  £39,000  was  raised  instead 
of  the  £20,000  that  had  been  asked. 

In  1881,  while  1,000  Irishmen  were  in 
prison  without  trial,  Rome  asked  Ireland 
"to  obey  the  laws,''  and  in  1882  the  bishops 
were  ordered  to  crush  the  Ladies'  Land 
League,  for,  with  all  the  men  in  prison,  the 
women  had  gathered  to  carry  on  the  work. 
Cardinal  Monaco,  in  a  rescript,  attacked 
boycotting  as  "contrary  to  Christian  charity," 
and  tried  to  destroy  the  whole  Land  League 
movement.  Michael  Davitt,  a  true  Catholic, 
but  also  a  true  Irishman,  has  explained  the 
attitude  of  Rome  more  clearly,  perhaps,  than 
any  other: 

The  secret  opposition  of  Rome  to  Home  Rule  is  not 
at  all  appreciated  in  its  right  motives  in  populai* 
British  politics.  The  silly  fiction  about  Home  Rule 
meaning  Rome  Rule  for  Ireland  has  served  a  twofold 
anti-Irish  purpose,  and  very  effectively  so  far.  It  has 
inflamed  extreme  Protestant  minds  against  the  ra- 
tional demands  of  the  Irish  people,  while  at  the  same 
time  furthering  the  best  interests  of  Vatican  policy 
in  securing  the  continued  presence  of  some  eighty 
Catholic  members  in  the  otherwise  most  exclusively 
Protestant  Pai'liament  in  the  world.  It  is  known 
right  well  by  English  Catholics  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk 

140 


THE   '^ ULSTER  PROBLEM" 

order,  and  in  Rome,  too,  that  the  transference  of  the 
Irish  representation  from  Westminster  to  Ireland 
would  mean  the  exclusion  of  almost  all  CathoUc 
power  and  influence  from  the  House  of  Commons. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  National  Assembly  in  DubUn 
would  give  prominence  to  the  existence  of  a  strong 
Protestant  minority  in  what  is  beHeved  in  Europe  to 
be  an  exclusively  Catholic  country. 

Another  and  final  point  in  the  Ulster  con- 
tention has  to  do  with  the  racial  stock  of  the 
population.  The  general  impression  sought 
to  be  conveyed  is  that  the  Ulster  men  are 
Scotch,  not  Irish.  In  earlier  times  this  was 
largely  true,  but,  under  orders  from  Eliza- 
beth, Shane  O'Neill  drove  the  Scotch  out  of 
Ulster  in  1551,  and,  while  James  I  brought 
more  in,  these  also  were  exiled  in  their 
turn  by  William  the  Third  when  he  destroyed 
the  wool  industry  of  Belfast.  The  Ulster 
Scotch  went  to  either  France  or  America,  and 
their  places  were  taken  by  Presbyterians  and 
Protestants  from  England,  by  Huguenots 
from  France,  and  by  Catholics  from  other 
and  less  fertile  parts  of  Ireland.  This  new 
population,  in  one  hundred  years,  has  been 
^^Irishized'^  as  completely  as  were  the  Danes 
and  the  Normans.  To  use  the  contemptu- 
ous phrase  of  Lord  Dunraven:  '^This  con- 

11  141 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

ception  of  the  Protestants  in  Ulster  being  a 
sort  of  projection  of  England,  or  of  Scotland, 
is  not  an  Irish  idea.  It  is  a  purely  British 
invention.  It  is  a  sort  of  British  patent  that 
is  brought  out  every  now  and  then  for  politi- 
cal purposes.'' 

So  much  for  the  ojpen  case  of  Ulster.  It 
falls  flat  and  false  at  every  point.  What, 
then,  are  the  real  reasons  for  the  Ulster  atti- 
tude and  English  acquiescence?  Why  has 
Ulster  changed  from  a  hotbed  of  republican- 
ism to  a  refrigerating-plant  of  monarchism? 
Formerly  nothing  would  satisfy  Ulster  but  re- 
bellion and  separation;  now  nothing  is  more 
abhorrent  to  Ulster  than  freedom.  It  wants 
the  rule  of  ^Hhe  king,  his  faithful  subjects  we 
are  and  will  continue  all  our  days.''  ^ 

There  are  two  reasons:  one  proceeding 
from  politics,  the  other  from  the  selfishnesses 
of  conomerce.  Opposition  to  Irish  self-gov- 
ernment is  the  Tory  party's  sole  remaining 
stock  in  trade,  or,  to  put  it  more  plainly,  the 
^^ religious  issue"  involved  is  the  Tory  fig- 
leaf.  Take  it  away  and  the  ugly  nakedness 
of  Tory  standpattism  would  be  revealed 
mercilessly  down  to  the  last  sordid  detail. 
As  long  as  Law,  Cecil,  Balfour,  Milner,  and 
Curzon  can  stand  in  the  position  of  ^^pro- 

142 


THE   ''ULSTER  PROBLEM'^ 

tecting''  the  ^' loyal  Protestants^'  of  Ulster 
against  the  ''Scarlet  Woman/'  just  so  long 
can  they  draw  attention  away  from  the  fact 
that  the  Tory  party's  raison  d^etre  is  to  fight 
progress  and  to  resist  every  reform  that 
menaces  the  special  privileges  of  the  ruling 
class  in  England.  Always  and  everj^where 
the  forces  of  reaction  seek,  and  have  sought, 
a  ^'religious  issue"  or  a  ^' moral  issue"  in 
order  to  divert  people  from  industrial  and 
economic  wrongs.  The  ''moral  issue "  served 
to  kill  Home  Rule  in  the  days  of  Parnell,  and 
now  it  is  the  "rehgious  issue"  that  serves  to 
deny  Ireland  the  small  measure  of  self-gov- 
ernment pledged  so  solemnly  by  the  elected 
authorities  of  England.  It  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind,  also,  that  control  of  Ireland  is  a  rich 
source  of  campaign  contributions  and  pat- 
ronage. The  Irish  government  costs  about 
$150,000,000  a  year,  and  provides  lucrative 
jobs  for  100,000  worth}^  gentlemen,  usually 
English  or  Scotch,  and,  naturally  enough, 
there  is  no  burning  desire  to  see  these  jobs 
turned  over  to  the  Irish. 

The  commercial  reason  has  been  set  forth 
frankly,  if  not  engagingly,  by  Austen  Cham- 
berlain, the  Birmingham  millionaire  manu- 
facturer, leading  Unionist,  and  son  of  the 

U3 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Joseph  Chamberlain  who  deserted  Gladstone 
and  the  Liberals  in  1886  after  agreeing  to 
vote  for  Home  Rule.  In  a  document  ad- 
dressed to  English  readers,  Mr.  Chamberlain 
carefully  explained  that  ^^  Ireland  buys  thirty- 
two  million  pounds^  worth  of  British  finished 
products  a  year/^  and  Home  Rule,  ^^by  inter- 
fering with  or  destroying  this  great  volume  of 
trade,  would  bring  bankruptcy  and  disaster 
to  many  British  firms  and  their  workmen." 
What  Mr.  Chamberlain  meant,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  was  that  Ireland,  under  self-govern- 
ment, might  possibly  desire  to  build  up  her 
own  manufactures  and  cease  to  be  dependent 
upon  England. 

It  may  well  be  asked  at  this  point  why  Ire- 
land has  to  wait  on  Home  Rule  for  the  de- 
velopment of  her  resources.  The  answer  is 
very  simple.  British  capital  controls  the 
banks  of  Ireland,  and,  while  concessions  are 
made  to  Belfast,  the  rest  of  Ireland  asks  in 
vain  for  loans  for  helpful  co-operation.  A 
special  government  commission,  reporting 
in  1910  on  these  matters,  found  that  the 
Irish  railroads  were  controlled  entirely  in  the 
interests  of  British  companies  as  to  facilities 
and  rates,  special  privileges  being  given  to 
British  goods  and  special  prohibitions  being 

144 


THE   '^  ULSTER  PROBLEM 


yy 


leveled  against  Irish  goods.  Austin  Harrison, 
an  Englishman,  writing  on  railway  condi- 
tions in  Ireland,  found  that  ^^  Transport 
rates  are  37  per  cent,  higher  than  in  England. 
It  is  cheaper  to  send  cattle  by  road  than  by 
rail;  cheaper  to  take  coal  from  Scotland  to 
a  seaport  than  to  get  it  ten  miles  inland; 
cheaper  to  carry  goods  to  England  and  have 
them  reshipped  to  Ireland  at  English  rates 
than  to  pay  the  Irish  rates.  A  parcel  can 
travel  500  miles  in  England  for  half  the  price 
it  costs  for  thirty  miles  in  Ireland.  .  .  .  And 
why?  Because  of  the  railway  monopoly  run 
for  the  shareholders,  thereby  crushing  Irish 
industries.  .  .  .  The  case  of  Ireland^s  chief 
coal-pit — at  Castlecomer — deprived  of  a  rail- 
way, is  a  flagrant  example.  .  .  .  Good  anthra- 
cite seams — it  does  not  pay  to  work  them. 
The  colliery  works  at  a  quarter  pressure — 
and  this  in  the  hour  of  European  coal  famine  I 
.  .  .  though  it  is  merely  the  question  of  a 
slip-line  of  eleven  miles.'' 

No  development  of  Irish  coal-fields  because 
English  coal  sells  at  $12.50  a  ton  in  Ireland! 
No  development  of  Irish  industry  because 
English  manufacturers  seU  $160,000,000 
worth  of  goods  in  Ireland  every  year! 

Stripped  of  the  fake  religious  issue,  the 

145 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

'^ Ulster  problem"  stands  revealed  as  the 
vulgar  chicane  of  place-hunting  politicians 
and  predatory  capitalists.  As  for  the  ^^Ejng 
and  Empire"  motive,  H.  G.  Wells  makes 
bitter  exposure  of  the  pretense  by  declaring 
the  ^'sort  of  British  Nationalism  that  is  sub- 
sidized by  rich  Tories,  international  finan- 
ciers, and  Ulster  lawyers  who  are  neither  good 
Irish  nor  good  English,  where  patriotism  is 
really  ^Britain  for  the  British  exploiter,^  is 
^sham  nationalism/  " 

Aside  from  English  Tories  like  Law  and 
Smith,  English  peers  like  Milner  and  Curzon, 
Anglo-Irish  peers  like  Lord  Londonderry, 
whose  titles  have  their  origin  in  Pitt's  pur- 
chase of  the  Irish  Parliament  in  1800,  and 
the  greedy  following  of  office-holders,  the 
'^Ulster  rebellion"  had  little  base  in  the  con- 
victions of  the  people  of  Ulster.  Some  of 
the  methods  employed  to  drum  up  recruits 
for  the  Ulster  Volunteers  have  been  described 
by  St.  John  G.  Ervine,  an  Ulster  Protestant, 
in  his  biography  of  Carson: 

The  young  men  of  Ulster  .  .  .  were  not  prepared 
to  die  in  any  ditch,  first  or  last,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
enactment  of  the  Home  Rule  bill,  and  a  reputable 
number  of  them  were  positively  prepared  to  fight  for 
its  passage.     Intimidation,  ranging  from  threats  of 

146 


THE   ^^ ULSTER  PROBLEM '' 

social  ostracism  to  threats  of  dismissal  from  employ- 
ment, was  used  to  induce  them  to  sign  the  covenant  or 
join  the  Ulster  Volunteers.  There  was  talli  of  boy- 
cotting all  Protestant  Home-Rulers,  and  there  was  an 
outburst  of  ill  will  among  men  who  had  previously 
been  on  good  terms.  There  were  shameful  scenes  of 
violence  in  the  shipyaj-ds,  where  gangs  of  infuriated 
Orange  louts  attacked  isolated  Catholic  or  Protestant 
Home-Rulers  and  subjected  them  to  acts  of  outrage 
and  brutality  which  cannot  be  fitly  described.  None 
of  the  business  men  of  Ulster,  old  or  young,  had  any 
taste  for  rebellion.  They  certainly  had  not  the  appe- 
tite for  insurrection  that  their  fathers  had  in  1798. 

Had  Asquith  stood  firm  against  the  Car- 
son ^ 'bluff'' — for  it  was  that  and  nothing  else 
— it  is  a  certainty  that  the  only  '^  Ulster 
rebels"  to  take  the  field  would  have  been  a 
farcical  gathering  of  English  peers,  English 
bankers,  English  lawyers,  and  English  office- 
holders, backed  from  Ulster  itself  only  by 
such  as  are  in  direct  or  indirect  subsidy  from 
the  English  government.  And  if  Lloyd 
George  forced  the  issue  to-day,  the  result 
would  be  the  same. 


Chapter  VI 
The  Case  of  Canada 

IN  any  study  of  the  ^'Ulster  problem/^  what 
comes  to  mind  almost  instantly  is  the 
striking  analogy  between  the  Carson-Craig 
attitude  and  the  position  of  the  American 
Tory  in  1775.  Ulster  leaders  ^Hremble  at 
the  thought  of  separation  from  England/^ 
stand  like  iron  against  any  form  of  self- 
government  for  Ireland,  declare  that  there 
is  no  capacity  for  independence  in  the  Irish, 
and  threaten  bloodshed  and  disaster  if  any 
degree  of  freedom  is  forced  upon  them. 

This  style  of  argument  was  employed 
almost  to  the  word  by  American  Tories  in 
their  attempt  to  cripple  Washington.  They 
^Hrembled^^  morning,  noon,  and  night,  pro- 
tested that  ^Hhe  country  did  not  want  inde- 
pendence,'^ branded  Washington  and  Adams 
and  Patrick  Henry  as  ^ Apolitical  adventurers 
of  the  worst  type,''  declared  that  the  colo- 
nists had  no  capacity  for  self-government,  and 

14S 


THE   CASE  OF  CANADA 

insisted  that  separation  from  England  would 
entail  ^^ bloody  discord  for  ages.''  As  Chan- 
ning  points  out,  this  class  was  drawn  from 
English  landlords,  colonial  officials,  and  others 
in  receipt  of  place  and  money  from  the  Eng- 
lish government,  just  as  in  Ulster,  but  while 
50,000  of  these  ^ loyalists"  went  into  the 
British  service  to  fight  their  fellow-Ameri- 
cans, history  does  not  record  that  Washing- 
ton yielded  to  this  minority  in  any  degree. 
An  even  more  startling  analogy,  however,  is 
found  between  Ulster's  contention  to-day 
and  the  Canadian  situation  in  1837.  With 
certain  changes  in  name,  the  case  of  the  one 
might  well  serve  as  the  statement  of  the 
other.  Home  Rule  for  Canada  was  resisted 
on  the  ground  that  it  would  put  the  English 
Protestant  minority  at  the  mercy  of  the 
French  Catholic  majority;  the  ^^ loyalists" 
implored  England  not  to  subject  their 
^'wealth,  enterprise,  and  education"  to  the 
evil  domination  of  the  ^^idle,  shiftless,  big- 
oted Papists " ;  Papineau,  the  Canadian  Par- 
nell,  aroused  his  people  to  rebellion.  Coercion 
Acts  filled  the  prisons  with  rebels,  and  the 
province  rocked  to  every  knovv^n  hatred  and 
disorder  until  the  grant  of  self-government 
in  1841.     Even  at  the  risk  of  acquainting 

149 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

Americans  with  the  history  of  their  nearest 
neighbor,  a  danger  carefully  guarded  against 
by  the  Chinese  wall  of  our  educational  sys- 
tem, the  Canadian  struggle  must  be  sketched, 
for,  more  than  any  other  one  thing,  it  makes 
Ireland  credible. 

It  is  not  unfair  to  say  that  Canada,  at  the 
outset,  was  the  most  choicely  ^^oyal'^  coun- 
try in  the  world,  for  it  might  almost  be  said 
to  have  been  hand-picked.  The  50,000  Eng- 
lish office-holders  and  landlords,  who  looked 
upon  Washington  as  a  ^'dangerous  agitator," 
found  refuge  in  Canada,  and  to  Canada  also 
came  thousands  of  English  and  Scotch  care- 
fully selected  by  the  Earl  of  Selkirk  and 
other  illustrious  colonizers.  As  for  the 
French-Canadians,  the  bishops  and  priests  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  saw  to  it  that 
they  did  not  waver  in  allegiance  to  the  Eng- 
lish crown.  Even  as  the  Church  has  always 
stood  for  ^4aw  and  order"  in  Ireland,  so  were 
the  revolutions  of  America  and  France  ab- 
horrent to  the  Canadian  hierarchy. 

Yet  even  this  population,  so  initially  slav- 
ish, developed  protests  in  very  short  time, 
and  as  early  as  1791  we  find  the  astute  Pitt 
giving  Canada  the  same  sort  of  justice  that 
it  was  his  custom  to  shower  upon  Ireland. 

150 


THE  CASE  OF  CANADA 

He  divided  the  province  into  Upper  Canada 
and  Lower  Canada,  the  foimer  being  entirely 
English  and  the  latter  almost  soUdly  French, 
his  idea  being  to  keep  the  two  races  separate 
and  antagonistic  in  order  to  guard  against 
the  dangers  of  unity. 

Upper  Canada  and  Lower  Canada  each  re- 
ceived a  '^parliaments' — that  is,  the  people 
were  allowed  to  elect  an  Assembly,  but  all 
power  w^as  vested  in  the  governor,  sent  out 
from  England,  and  in  an  executive  council 
appointed  by  the  governor  and  not  responsi- 
ble to  the  people  in  any  degree.  This  shadow 
of  popular  government  soon  became  odious 
to  the  Canadians,  and  the  feeling  was  made 
more  bitter  by  cruel  laws  designed  to  crush 
protest  against  wanton  extravagances  and 
the  grossest  corruption. 

In  both  provinces,  for  instance,  great  tracts 
of  land  were  devoted  to  the  support  of  'Hhe 
Protestant  religion  in  Canada, '^  and  as  this 
was  interpreted  to  mean  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, the  Catholics,  Presbyterians,  Metho- 
dists, and  Baptists  were  soon  faced  with  a 
situation  that  put  the  bulk  of  their  natural 
resources  at  the  disposal  of  one  religious 
faith.  A  receiver-general  embezzled  $500,- 
000,  but  was  not  punished  or  even  removed 

151 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

from  office.  Individual  protests  were  met 
by  arrest,  and  any  paper  that  dared  to  com- 
plain was  instantly  suppressed.  The  As- 
semblies, striking  back  as  best  they  could, 
refused  to  vote  supplies,  but  the  governor 
met  this  by  simply  taking  over  the  treasury 
and  spending  as  he  saw  fit.  Sets  of  resolu- 
tions, bitter  in  their  portrayal  and  denuncia- 
tion of  injustice,  were  sent  to  England,  but, 
while  the  king  and  his  advisers  ^^  deplored '^ 
and  ^' regretted'^  and  promised  ^^ reform, '^ 
they  refused  flatly  to  give  Canadians  the  self- 
government  that  would  have  enabled  them 
to  provide  their  own  remedies  for  persecu- 
tion, corruption,  and  burdensome  taxes. 

Even  as  in  Ireland,  leaders  were  not  lacking, 
and  religious  and  racial  differences  were  for- 
gotten in  a  common  resistance  to  oppression. 
In  Lower  Canada,  Louis  Papineau,  French, 
and  Dr.  Wolfred  Nelson,  English,  led  the 
forces  of  protest,  while  in  Upper  Canada, 
Scotch  and  English  rebels  were  captained  by 
WiUiam  Lyon  Mackenzie.  Convinced  at  last 
that  relief  could  not  be  won  by  constitu- 
tional methods,  rebellion  was  decided  upon. 
Lower  Canada  struck  first.  The  people 
organized  the  Sons  of  Liberty,  and  the  As- 
sembly,   in  solemn    session,    virtually    de- 

152 


THE  CASE  OF  CANADA 

manded  the  withdrawal  of  all  imperial  au- 
thority. The  governor-general,  outraged  by 
this  insolence,  dissolved  the  House,  and  Papi- 
neau  and  Nelson  straightway  sounded  the  call 
to  arms.  Throughout  the  closing  months  of 
1837  there  was  bitter  fighting,  but  the  poorly 
armed  Colonials,  lacking  artillery,  were  no 
match  for  the  veteran  English  regulars,  and  by 
the  new  year  the  rebellion  was  crushed,  even 
as  rebellions  had  been  crushed  in  Ireland,  and 
the  leaders  were  dead,  or  fled,  or  in  prison. 

In  Upper  Canada,  Mackenzie  could  not 
perfect  his  arrangements  in  time  to  join 
forces  with  Papineau,  and  it  was  this  failure 
that  spelled  defeat  for  both.  It  was  not 
until  November  25th,  the  day  of  the  most 
decisive  battle  in  Lower  Canada,  that  Mac- 
kenzie announced  ^Hhe  Provisional  Govern- 
ment of  the  State  of  Upper  Canada,'^  and 
flung  to  the  wind  the  hopeful  banner  of 
the  new  republic.  A  blacksmith,  Samuel 
Lount,  was  the  commander-in-chief  of  the 
rebel  forces,  and  under  him  were  1,000  men 
armed  with  scythes,  axes,  and  pitchforks, 
only  a  slight  variant  from  the  pikes  and  ashen 
stakes  of  the  Irish.  All  the  courage  in  the 
world  may  not  compensate  for  inadequate 
equipment,  and  even  as  Papineau  and  Nelson 

153 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

were  crushed,  Mackenzie  and  Loiint  went 
down  to  defeat  and  despair. 

The  constitution  of  1791  was  suspended, 
and  Canada  lived  under  an  absolutism  as 
cruel  and  thorough  as  though  it  had  been  a 
Congo  province.  The  one  gleam  of  hope 
that  lighted  the  darkness  of  the  period  was 
the  appointment  as  governor-general  of  Lord 
Durham,  a  wise  man,  just  and  humane.  One 
of  his  first  acts  was  to  call  a  conference  of 
leaders  from  the  Upper  and  Lower  Canadas, 
Nova  Scotia,  New  Brunswick,  Newfound- 
land, and  Prince  Edward  Island,  asking  for 
their  grievances  and  suggestions.  His  second 
act  was  to  grant  a  general  amnesty  out  of  a 
desire  to  establish  an  atmosphere  of  harmony 
in  which  to  work  out  his  plans  for  peace 
and  justice.  Such  a  man,  however,  and  such 
plans  had  no  place  in  the  English  govern- 
ment's scheme  of  things,  and  Lord  Durham 
was  recalled  after  a  tenure  of  six  short 
months.  In  England,  however,  he  filed  a 
report  that  lives  in  history  for  its  scorching 
indictment  of  English  misrule.  Here  are 
some  of  the  counts: 

The  public  have  no  security  for  any  fairness  in  the 

selection  of  juries.     There  was  no  check  on  the  sheriff. 

The  public  knew  he  could  pack  a  jury  whenever  he 

154 


THE  CASE  OF  CANADA 

pleased,  and  supposed  that  an  officer  holding  a  lucra- 
tive appointment  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Government 
would  be  ready  to  carry  into  effect  their  designs. 

The  Bench,  the  magistracy,  the  high  places  in  the 
Episcopal  Church,  and  a  great  part  of  the  legal  pro- 
fession, are  filled  by  this  party,  (The  ''Family  Com- 
pact"); by  grant  or  purchase  they  have  acquired 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  unoccupied  lands  of  the  prov- 
ince; they  are  all  powerful  in  the  chartered  banks,  and 
till  lately  they  shared  among  themselves  exclusively 
all  offices  of  trust  and  profit.  The  principal  members 
of  this  party  belong  to  the  Church  of  England,  and 
maintenance  of  the  claims  of  the  Church  has  always 
been  one  of  their  distinguishing  characteristics. 

It  was  a  vain  delusion  to  imagine  that  by  mere 
limitations  in  the  Constitution  Act,  or  an  exclusive 
system  of  government,  a  body  strong  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  wielding  the  public  opinion  of  the  majority 
could  look  on  as  a  passive  or  indifferent  spectator 
while  laws  were  carried  into  effect  by  men  in  whose 
intentions  or  capacity  it  had  not  the  shghtest  confi- 
dence. Yet  such  was  the  limitation  upon  the  author- 
ity of  the  Assembly  of  Lower  Canada.  It  might 
refuse  to  pass  laws,  vote  or  refuse  supplies;  but  it 
could  exercise  no  influence  on  a  single  officer  of  the 
Crown.  The  Executive,  the  Law  Officers,  the  heads 
of  the  Administrative  Departments,  were  placed  in 
power  without  any  regard  to  the  wishes  of  the  people 
or  their  representatives,  nor  indeed  are  there  wanting 
instances  in  which  hostility  to  the  majority  of  the 
people  elevated  the  most  incompetent  persons  to 
posts  of  honor  and  trust. 

155 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

And  had  he  been  writing  of  Ireland,  Lord 
Durham  could  not  have  drawn  a  more  accu- 
rate picture  of  the  forces  that  work  inevitably 
for  poverty  and  emigration.  ^^I  dread/^  he 
declared,  ^Hhe  completion  of  the  sad  work  of 
depopulation  and  impoverishment  which  is 
now  rapidly  going  on.  The  present  evil  is 
not  merely  that  improvement  is  stayed,  and 
that  the  wealth  and  population  of  these 
colonies  do  not  increase  according  to  the 
rapid  scale  of  American  progress.  No  ac- 
cession of  population  takes  place  by  immi- 
gration and  no  capital  is  brought  into  the 
country.  On  the  contrary,  both  the  people 
and  the  capital  seem  to  be  quitting  these 
distracted  provinces.'' 

His  report  was  dismissed  contemptuously 
as  a  matter  of  course,  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
declaring  that  ^4ocal  responsible  government 
for  Canada  and  the  sovereignty  of  Great 
Britain  were  completely  incompatible.''  Lord 
Stanley,  in  asking  the  consequences  of  grant- 
ing the  Canadian  demand,  answered  himself 
as  follows:  ^^The  establishment  of  a  repub- 
lic— the  concession  would  remove  the  only 
check  to  the  tyrannical  power  of  the  domi- 
nant majority— a  majority  in  numbers  only, 
while  in  wealth,  education,  and  enterprise 

156 


THE   CASE  OF  CANADA 

they  are  greatly  inferior  to  the  minority. 
The  minority  of  the  settlers  are  of  British 
descent,  and  one  thing  is  certain,  if  these 
settlers  find  themselves  deprived  of  British 
protection  they  will  protect  themselves. 
]\Ieasures  to  that  effect  would  be  taken  \^dth- 
in  six  months  after  the  concession.' '  Exactly 
the  claim  of  Carson  and  Bonar  Law  in  1914! 
Sir  George  Arthur,  called  from  Van  Die- 
men's  Land  to  be  governor-general  of  Can- 
ada, brought  with  him  to  his  new  post  the 
same  cruelty  that  had  marked  his  despotic 
rule  over  England's  convict  settlement.  Rebel 
leaders  were  hung,  jails  filled  with  prisoners, 
and  both  provinces  were  given  over  to  whole- 
sale persecution  that  established  a  reign  of 
terror  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  Canada.  Supported  enthusiastically  by 
Arthur,  the  oUgarch  groups  of  English  office- 
holders passed  new  and  more  odious  laws, 
and  in  the  faU  of  1838  rebellion  broke  out 
anew.  Under  the  leadership  of  van  Schultz, 
a  Polish  exile,  Canadian  refugees  and  Ameri- 
can sympathizers  crossed  the  line  to  aid  the 
rebels,  but  the  American  government,  as  an 
evidence  of  neutraUty,  seized  their  boats, 
depriving  them  of  the  arms  and  reinforce- 
ments that  had  been  counted  upon.     Sur- 

12  157 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

render  came  after  fierce  fighting,  and  the  gov- 
ernor, refusing  to  consider  the  men  as  other 
than  traitors,  hung  van  Schultz  and  eleven 
of  his  associates.  At  other  points,  prisoners 
were  shot  down  at  once  without  even  a  court 
martial,  and  execution  followed  execution 
until  the  English  people  forced  the  govern- 
ment to  call  a  halt  upon  the  brutalities  of 
General  Arthur. 

Lovers  of  liberty  in  England  now  forced  a 
reconsideration  of  the  report  of  Lord  Dur- 
ham, and  insisted  that  the  choice  to  be  made 
was  either  a  just  and  generous  measure  of 
self-government  for  Canada  or  else  armed 
occupation  with  all  the  savageries  that  sub- 
jugation entails.  Canada,  more  fortunate 
than  Ireland,  was  separated  from  England 
by  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  not  a  narrow  channel, 
and  it  was  this  fact,  as  much  as  anything  else, 
that  forced  Home  Rule  into  operation  in 
1841.  The  two  Canadas  were  united  under 
a  single  constitution  ^^  similar  in  principle  to 
that  of  the  United  Kingdom'^;  the  executive 
council  was  made  responsible  to  the  legisla- 
ture in  the  same  way  as  the  Cabinet  is  respon- 
sible to  Parliament.  Members  of  the  coun- 
cil, like  Cabinet  ministers,  vacated  their 
seats  on  appointment,  and  had  to  seek  re- 

158 


THE  CASE  OF  CANADA 

election  before  they  could  act;  and  the  coun- 
cil was  liable  to  be  turned  out  of  office  by  the 
vote  of  the  legislative  bodies.  In  a  word, 
the  Canadian  people  were  ^Ho  execute  as 
well  as  to  make  laws/'  All  granted  grudg- 
ingly after  years  of  bitterness  reddened  by 
the  blood  of  rebellion. 

Learning  nothing  by  the  lesson,  for  in- 
ability to  learn  by  experience  is  the  one 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  all  Bourbon 
rule,  the  English  government  refused  to  the 
other  provinces  the  self-government  granted 
to  the  two  Canadas.  Nova  Scotia,  New 
Brunswick,  Newfoundland,  and  Prince  Ed- 
ward Island  had  remained  '^oyal'^  during 
the  rebellions  of  Papineau  and  Mackenzie, 
although  their  grievances  were  as  great,  and 
had  even  sent  militia  to  help  crush  the  up- 
risings in  the  sister  provinces.  The  reward 
for  loyalty  was  to  be  told  that  they  were  not 
yet  sufficiently  advanced  for  self-government, 
whereupon  the  provinces,  eyes  somewhat 
opened,  took  a  page  out  of  the  Canadian 
book,  and  commenced  to  agitate  and  threaten. 
It  is  instructive,  and  even  amusing,  to  note 
the  absolute  hkeness  of  their  complaints  to 
those  of  the  Irish,  ''absentee  landlordism/' 
for  iustance,  being  a  bitter  anger  in  the  prov- 

169 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

inces  no  less  than  in  Ireland.  Most  of  the 
land  had  been  granted  to  English  peers, 
and  the  great  majority  of  farmers  paid  rents 
to  men  never  seen  by  them  and  who  had  no 
concern  with  them  save  in  the  matter  of  these 
rentals.  Poor  devils  would  spend  years  in 
improving  a  piece  of  wild  land,  only  to  be 
confronted  by  a  demand  for  '^arrears''  or 
else  a  raise  in  rent  far  beyond  their  means. 
Evictions  were  as  common  as  in  Ireland  and 
resistance  just  as  violent.  It  was  not  until 
1848  that  New  Brunswick  and  Nova  Scotia 
secured  self-government,  while  Prince  Ed- 
ward Island  waited  until  1852  and  Newfound- 
land until  1855. 

Another  illuminative  comparison  is  that 
between  the  Unionists  of  Ulster  in  1914  and 
the  Conservatives  of  Canada,  the  loyalty  of 
both  being  revealed  as  a  kind  that  endures 
only  when  coddled,  breaking  forth  into  dis- 
loyalty when  its  privileges  are  interfered  with 
in  any  degree. 

A  bill,  introduced  in  the  Canadian  Par- 
liament to  meet  the  rebellion  losses  incurred 
by  loyal  French-Canadians,  was  fought  with 
the  utmost  bitterness  by  the  English  ruling 
class,  and  open  insurrection  was  threatened 
in  event  of  its  passage.     When  the  measure 

160 


THE   CASE  OF  CANADA 

was  passed  and  duly  signed  by  a  courageous 
governor-general,  the  wealth  and  respecta- 
bility of  Montreal  mobbed  Lord  Elgin,  stoned 
the  members  of  Parliament  from  their  seats, 
and  set  the  building  on  fire,  an  uprising  that 
resulted  in  the  change  of  the  capital  to 
Ottawa. 

The  British  North  America  Act,  put  into 
operation  in  1867,  federated  the  provinces  of 
Canada,  and  gave  the  people  a  complete 
measure  of  Home  Rule.  Aside  from  the 
Parliament,  however,  with  full  control  of 
trade,  commerce,  postal  service,  military  and 
naval  defense,  fisheries,  coinage,  banking, 
criminal  law  and  appeals,  each  province  has 
its  own  provisional  legislature,  and  its  own 
responsible  government,  these  things  con- 
stituting the  measure  of  justice  that  is 
denied  to  Ireland. 

The  ^^  experiment '^  has  been  tried  now  for 
more  than  half  a  century,  and  from  the  very 
first  hour  of  self-government  every  gloomy 
prophecy  of  the  ^ loyalists"  has  been  given 
the  lie  by  results.  Catholics  and  Protestants 
did  not  fly  at  one  another's  throats,  but  have 
lived  in  amity  and  accord,  and  the  Canadian 
records  fail  to  show  a  single  instance  of 
official  bigotry  or  attempt  at  sectarian  intol- 

161 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

erance.  The  ^'depopulation  and  impover- 
ishment'^ noted  by  Lord  Durham  ceased 
quickly  with  responsible  government*  land 
and  people  have  prospered  in  wonderful 
degree,  and  the  old  hatreds  and  rebellions 
have  been  su'cceeded  by  a  real  loyalty  that 
sent  thousands  of  young  Canadian  volunteers 
to  the  defense  of  England  in  her  hour  of  most 
terrible  need. 

These  are  results  that  could  have  been  ob- 
tained in  Ireland  at  any  time  in  the  last  two 
hundred  years  had  England  chosen  to  meet 
the  repeated  rebeUions  of  the  Irish  with  the 
justice  that  one  Canadian  revolt  compelled. 
Just  as  fairness  won  the  love  and  allegiance 
of  Canada  and  its  people,  giving  the  strength 
and  safety  of  the  Empire  a  new  foundation- 
stone,  so  did  the  English  policy  of  force  in 
Ireland  deepen  ancient  angers  and  feed  the 
enmity  of  the  Irish.  Not  alone  did  this  im- 
placable antagonism  crouch  on  England's 
very  threshold,  but  a  million  Gaels,  deported 
by  their  despairs,  gave  to  other  lands  the 
genius  that  England  despised  and  ignored. 

Nothing  is  more  safe  than  the  assertion 
that  there  is  not  a  country  of  the  world  in 
which  the  exiles  of  Erin  have  not  played 
great  parts  in  every  drama  of  progress  and 

162 


THE  CASE  OF  CANADA 

construction,  enriching  and  encouraging  the 
native  stock  and  lending  ardor  and  abihties 
to  national  tasks,  whether  war  or  statecraft 
or  administration,  commerce  or  literature. 
Macaulay,  commenting  in  bitter  melancholy 
upon  Irish  conditions  after  the  reign  of  cruel 
bigotry  inaugurated  by  William  III,  said: 

There  were  indeed  Irish  Roman  Cathohcs  of  great 
abihty,  energy,  and  ambition,  but  they  were  to  be 
found  everyv\^here  except  in  Ireland — at  Versailles, 
and  at  St.  Ildefonso,  in  the  aiTuies  of  Frederic  and  in 
the  armies  of  Maria  Theresa.  One  exile  became  a 
marshal  of  France.  Another  became  Prune  Minister 
to  Spain.  If  he  had  stayed  in  his  native  land,  he 
would  have  been  regarded  as  an  inferior  by  all  the 
ignorant  and  worthless  squireens  who  had  signed  the 
Declaration  against  Transubstantiation.  In  his  pal- 
ace at  Madrid  he  had  the  pleasure  of  being  assiduously 
courted  by  the  ambassador  of  George  the  Second  and 
of  bidding  defiance  in  high  terms  to  the  ambassador 
of  George  the  Third.  Scattered  over  all  Europe  were 
to  be  found  brave  generals,  dexterous  Irish  diploma- 
tists, Irish  Counts,  Irish  Barons,  Irish  Knights  of 
Saint  Lewis  and  of  Saint  Leopold,  of  the  White  Eagle 
and  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  who,  if  they  had  remained 
in  the  house  of  bondage,  could  not  have  been  en- 
signs of  marching  regiments  or  freemen  of  petty  cor- 
porations. 

The  answer  stands  as  true  to-day  as  when 
Macaulay  wrote  it.     As  in  the  past,  it  is  still 

163 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

the  case  that  Irishmen  of  brains  and  vision 
are  looked  upon  as  ^^ inferiors^'  unless  they 
choose  to  identify  themselves  with  the  Eng- 
lish ruling  class,  joining  in  the  oppression  of 
their  fellows,  vying  with  the  House  of  Lords 
in  contempt  for  the  capacities  of  Ireland's 
native  stock.  If  they  do  not  choose  to  make 
this  betrayal,  political  preferment  is  closed 
to  them;  the  door  to  wealth  is  likewise  shut, 
for  British  capital  controls  Irish  initiative,  and 
wherever  they  turn  they  find  similar  bars  that 
may  only  be  raised  by  their  apostasy.  This, 
then,  is  the  reason  why  the  Irish  are  forced  to 
rise  to  greatness  in  other  lands,  writing  in 
every  page  of  history,  in  every  language,  a 
record  of  capacity  that,  expressed  in  their 
native  country,  would  have  lifted  Ireland  to 
high  place  among  the  nations  of  the  world. 
It  might  almost  be  said  that  the  Irish, 
wherever  found,  come  under  the  head  of 
'^natural  resources.'' 

MacMahon-was  made  Duke  of  Magenta 
and  a  marshal  of  France,  and  rose  to  be  Presi- 
dent of  the  French  Republic.  Sarsfield  won 
the  baton  of  a  field-marshal  at  the  head  of  the 
famous  Irish  Brigade,  and  publicly  received 
the  thanks  of  the  French  nation;  Mahony 
carried  the  French  to  victory  in  Italy,  and 

164 


THE  CASE  OF  CANADA 

at  the  battle  of  Fontenoy,  England^s  most 
terrible  defeat  since  Hastings,  Irish  fighting 
men  played  so  important  a  part  that  the  Eng- 
lish king  cried  out  in  his  anguish,  ^^ Cursed 
be  the  laws  which  deprive  me  of  such 
subjects!" 

In  Spain,  Wall  was  a  prime  minister,  the 
O'Donnells  were  dukes  of  Tetuan,  O'Reilly 
was  Governor  of  Cadiz,  and  three  times  dur- 
ing the  eighteenth  century  there  occurred 
the  amazing  spectacle  of  Irishmen  serving 
as  Spanivsh  ambassadors  at  the  English  court. 
In  Portugal  the  O'Neills  were  counts  of  Santa 
Monica,  and  O'Donnells,  O'Dalys,  Kellys, 
Fitzgeralds,  and  O'Farrells  rose  to  be  dukes 
and  barons,  ministers,  judges,  generals,  and 
admirals. 

As  an  Irish  writer  bitterly  records : 

Within  a  century,  the  great  Leinster  house  of  Kav- 
anagh  counted  in  Europe  an  auHc  councillor,  a  gov- 
ernor of  Prague,  a  field-marshal  at  Vienna,  a  field- 
marshal  in  Poland,  a  great  chamberlain  in  Saxony,  a 
count  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  a  French  Con- 
ventionist  of  1793,Godefroy  Cavaignac,  co-editor  with 
Armand  Carrell  and  Eugene  Cavaignac,  sometime 
dictator  in  France,  and  Edward  Kavanagh,  minister 
of  Portugal.  .  Russia  found  among  the  exiles  a  gov- 
ernor-general of  Livonia.     Count  Thomond  was  com- 

165 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

mander  at  Languedoc.  Lally  was  governor  at  Pon- 
dicherry.  O'Dwyer  was  commander  of  Belgrade; 
Lacy,  of  Riga;  Lawless,  governor  of  Majorca. 


The  O'Donnells  and  O^Briens,  changed  to 
Odontscheffs  and  Obrutscheffs,  rose  to  power 
in  Russia,  Count  Taafe  came  to  wield  almost 
autocratic  sway  in  Austria,  and  others  that 
the  Austrian  government  delighted  to  honor 
were  Baron  O'Brien,  Baron  Brady,  Baron 
McGuire,  and  Count  O'Kelly. 

The  great  Duke  of  Wellington  was  an 
Irishman,  and  even  while  England  was 
denying  the  capacity  of  the  Irish  to  rule 
themselves,  four  Irishmen — Richard  Welles- 
ley,  Francis  Hastings,  Richard  Bourke,  and 
Frederick  Blackwood — were  sent  as  gov- 
ernor-generals to  hold  sway  over  all  India. 
Guy  Carleton,  the  greatest  governor-general 
that  Canada  ever  knew,  was  a  Tyrone  man, 
and  Dean  Swift,  Laurence  Sterne,  Oliver 
Goldsmith,  Edmund  Burke,  Richard  Brinsley 
Sheridan  were  Irish,  and  Goldsmith's  ^'De- 
serted Village"  lives  through  all  time  as 
an  accurate  picture  of  Irish  expropriation. 
Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  three  times  tried  for 
his  life  by  English  justice,  went  to  Australia 
and  became  prime  minister  of  Victoria,  and 

166 


The  case  of  Canada 

another  Irishman  ruled  New  South  Wales 
as  governor. 

Duffy,  visiting  in  Paris  during  the  presi- 
dency of  Marshal  MacMahon,  painted  this 
graphic  picture  of  France's  gain  and  Eng- 
land's loss: 

In  the  drawing-room  of  the  President  of  the  French 
Repubhc,  who  is  the  natural  head  of  the  exiled  fami- 
hes,  I  met  descendants  of  Irish  chiefs  who  took  refuge 
on  the  continent  at  the  time  of  the  Plantation  of 
Ulster  by  the  first  Stuart;  descendants  of  Irish  sol- 
diers who  sailed  from  Limerick  with  Sarsfield;  or  a 
httle  later  with  the  ''Wild  Geese"  (Jacobites);  of 
Irish  soldiers  who  shared  the  fortunes  of  Charles 
Edward  (the  "Young  Pretender");  of  Irish  peers 
and  gentlemen  to  whom  life  in  Ireland  without  a  career 
became  intolerable  in  the  dark  era  between  the  fall  of 
Limerick  and  the  rise  of  Henry  Grattan;  and  kinsmen 
of  soldiers  of  a  later  date,  who  began  life  as  United 
Irishmen,  and  ended  as  staff-officers  of  Napoleon. 
Who  can  measure  what  was  lost  to  Ireland  and  the 
[British]  Empire  by  driving  these  men  and  their 
descendants  into  the  armies  and  diplomacy  of  France? 
All  of  them  except  the  men  of  '98  have  become  so 
French  that  they  scarce  speak  any  other  language. 
There  is  a  Saint  Patrick's  Day  dinner  in  Paris  every 
17th  of  March,  where  the  company  consists  chiefly  of 
mihtary  and  civil  officers  of  Irish  descent,  who  com- 
rnemorate  the  national  apostle,  but  where  the  lan- 
guage of  the  speeches  is  French  because  no  other 
would  be  generally  understood.     I  reproached  a  gal- 

167 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

lant  young  soldier  of  this  class,  whom  I  met  in  Pai'is, 
with  having  relinquished  the  link  of  a  common  lan- 
guage with  the  native  soil  of  his  race.  ''Monsieur/* 
he  replied,  proudly,  ''when  my  ancestors  left  Ireland 
they  would  have  scorned  to  accept  the  language  any 
more  than  the  laws  of  England;  they  spoke  the  native 
Gaelic." 

From  the  beginning,  America's  relations 
with  Ireland  have  been  more  intimate  than 
with  any  other  nation  save  France.  In  every 
one  of  the  thirteen  Colonies  were  men  and 
women  of  Irish  birth,  exiled  from  their 
mother-country  by  the  oppressions  of  Eng- 
land, their  hearts  filled  with  a  passion  for 
freedom  that  gave  purpose  and  courage  to 
the  American  complaint  against  British  tyr- 
anny. These  Irishmen  signed  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence — Carroll  of  CarroUton, 
Smith,  Taylor,  Thornton,  Lynch,  McKean, 
Read,  Rutledge,  Hancock,  Whipple — and 
into  the  armies  of  Washington  poured  thou- 
sands of  fighting  men  of  pure  Irish  blood. 

Edmund  Burke,  raising  the  question  of  the 
nationahty  of  the  American  troops  before  an 
English  parliamentary  commission  appointed 
to  investigate  the  failures  of  British  generals, 
quoted  the  declaration  of  General  Lee  that 
''half  the  Rebel  Continental  Army  were  from 

1G8 


THE   CASE  OF  CANADA 

Ireland/'  Lord  Mountjoy  also  gave  this 
testimony  in  1784:  ^'America  was  lost  by 
Irish  emigrants.  I  am  assured,  from  the  best 
authority,  the  major  part  of  the  American 
army  was  composed  of  Irish,  and  that  the 
Irish  language  was  as  commonly  spoken  in 
the  American  ranks  as  English.  I  am  also 
informed  it  was  their  valor  that  determined 
the  contest,  so  that  England  had  America  de- 
tached from  her  by  force  of  Irish  emigrants. '^ 

Four  months  before  Concord,  a  New 
Hampshire  Irishman,  John  Sullivan,  after- 
ward one  of  Washington's  most  famous  gen- 
erals, won  the  first  great  success  of  the 
American  Revolution  by  his  capture  of  Fort 
William  and  Mary.  O'Brien,  another  Irish 
exile,  struck  the  first  blow  at  British  sea 
power  in  1775,  and  John  Barry,  a  Wexford 
man,  v>  as  virtually  the  founder  of  the  Ameri- 
can navy. 

Among  the  generals  upon  whom  Washing- 
ton most  depended,  Richard  Montgomery,* 
Walter  Stewart,  William  Thompson,  Stephen 
Moylan,  William  Irvine,  and  Richard  Butler 
were  Irish  exiles,  while  among  the  generals 
of  Irish  parentage  were  Edward  Hand, 
Washington's  adjutant-general,  John  Stark, 
Brown,  Marion,  George  Clinton,  afterward 

169 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

the  first  governor  of  New  York,  and  Knox, 
later  Secretary  of  the  War  and  Navy. 

The  Irish  not  only  gave  their  blood  to 
American  freedom,  but  their  money  as  well. 
When  the  Bank  of  Pennsylvania  was  organized 
to  supply  funds  for  the  support  of  the  Ameri- 
can army,  one-third  of  the  subscribers,  rep- 
resenting more  than  one-third  the  capital, 
were  members  of  the  Friendly  Sons  of  St. 
Patrick,  and  this  organization  later  con- 
tributed  outright  the  sum  of  $517,500  of  a 
total  of  $1,500,000.  Washington  praised 
this  society  as  ^^distinguished  for  the  firm 
adherence  of  its  members  to  the  glorious 
cause  in  which  we  are  involved,  ^^  and  ac- 
cepted membership  in  it  as  offered  by  a 
unanimous  vote. 

Irish  aid  was  not  confined  to  these  shores 
alone,  however,  for  Count  Arthur  Dillon 
sailed  with  2,300  Irish  troops  from  France  to 
fight  for  America  in  the  West  Indies.  It  was 
this  force's  capture  of  British  bases  that 
relieved  the  Colonists  of  a  great  danger,  con- 
tributing no  little  to  the  ultimate  success. 

This  intimacy  of  relation  was  not  due  en- 
tirely to  actual  Irish  assistance,  but  sprang 
also  from  the  feeling  that  the  American 
Colonies  had  much  in  commoii  with  Ireland 

170 


THE  CASE  OF  CANADA 

by  reason  of  a  common  oppressor.  Benjamin 
Franklin,  while  in  England,  gave  much  time 
and  thought  to  pointing  out  the  similarity 
between  Irish  and  American  aspirations,  and 
one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress was  to  frame  a  formal  address  to  the 
Irish  people  that  contained  this  paragraph: 

We  are  desirous  [as  is  natural  to  injured  innocence] 
of  possessing  the  good  opinion  of  the  virtuous  and 
humane.  .  .  .  We  know  that  you  are  not  without 
your  grievances.  We  sympathize  with  you  in  your 
distress,  and  are  pleased  to  find  that  the  design  of 
subjugating  us  had  persuaded  the  Administration  to 
dispense  to  Ireland  some  vagrant  rays  of  ministerial 
sunshine.  Even  the  tender  mercies  of  [the  British] 
Government  have  long  been  cruel  toward  you.  In 
the  rich  pastures  of  Ireland  many  hungry  parasites 
have  fed  and  grown  strong,  to  labor  for  its  destruction. 
We  hope  the  patient  abiding  of  the  meek  may  not  al- 
ways be  forgotten,  and  God  grant  that  the  iniquitous 
schemes  of  extirpating  liberty  may  soon  be  defeated. 
.  .  .  For  the  achievement  of  this  happy  event  we 
confide  in  the  good  offices  of  our  sympathizers  beyond 
the  Atlantic.  Of  their  friendly  dispositions  we  do  not 
yet  despair,  aware  as  they  must  be,  that  they  have 
nothing  more  to  expect  from  the  same  common  enemy 
than  the  humble  favor  of  being  last  devoured. 

Gen.  Andrew  Jackson  was  the  son  of  Irish 
parents,  and  a  fourth  of  his  officers  in  the 

171 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

War  of  1812  were  men  of  Irish  birth  or 
parentage,  and  it  is  estimated  that  not  less 
than  170,000  Irishmen  fought  under  Lincoln 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  Gen. 
Thomas  Francis  Meagher,  an  Irish  rebel,, 
deported  for  life  by  the  English  government, 
and  escaped  from  Van  Diemen^s  Land  to  the 
United  States,  was  among  the  first  to  offer 
his  sword,  and  this  testimony,  from  a  British 
observer,  might  well  serve  as  a  general 
description  of  Irish  conduct  throughout  the 
struggle : 

To  the  Irish  division  commanded  by  General 
Meagher  was  principally  committed  the  desperate 
task  of  bursting  out  of  the  town  of  Fredericksburg, 
and  forming  under  the  withering  fire  of  the  Confed- 
erate batteries,  to  attack  Marye's  Heights,  towering 
immediately  in  their  front.  Never  at  Fontenoy,  at 
Albuera,  or  at  Waterloo  was  more  undoubted  courage 
displayed  by  the  sons  of  Erin  than  during  those 
six  frantic  dashes  which  they  directed  against  the 
almost  impregnable  position  of  their  foe.  The 
bodies,  which  lie  in  dense  masses  within  forty  yai'ds 
of  the  muzzles  of  Colonel  Walton's  guns,  are  the  best 
evidence  of  what  manner  of  men  they  were  who 
pressed  on  to  death  with  the  dauntlessness  of  a  race 
whioh  has  gained  glory  on  a  thousand  battle-fields. 

When  the  United  States,  driven  to  war  by 
the  outrages  and  ill  faith  of  the  Imperial 

172 


THE  CASE  OF  CANADA 

German  government,  called  for  men  to  sup- 
port the  ideals  of  democracy,  the  most 
instant  and  enthusiastic  response  was  from 
the  so-called  Irish-Americans.  Hatred  of 
England,  handed  down  from  generation  to 
generation  through  seven  centuries,  was  put 
aside  out  of  devotion  to  the  country  of  their 
adoption,  and  the  records  of  the  War  Office 
are  thick  with  Irish  names  and  instances  of 
Irish  valor.  Prior  to  the  adoption  of  the 
treaty  arrangements,  such  unnaturalized  resi- 
dents of  the  United  States  as  were  citizens  of 
a  co-belligerent  country  had  the  right  to 
claim  exemption  when  drafted.  The  report 
of  the  provost  marshal  shows  that  this  class 
waived  exemption  in  the  following  percent- 
ages: 

Ireland 30.4 

Belgium 24 . 4 

Scotland 24.2 

England 22.5 

Wales 22.0 

Serbia 21.7 

Canada 21.0 

France 19.4 

Italy 16.8 

Just  as  they  have  fought  side  by  side  with 
pure  native  stock  in  every  American  war  for 

13  173 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

the  preservation  of  democracy  and  the  tri- 
umph of  democratic  ideals,  so  have  the  Irish 
played  heroic  part  in  the  victories  of  peace. 
In  the  advancement  of  the  frontier,  the  har- 
nessing of  streams,  the  battle  with  mountain 
and  plain,  the  conquest  of  desert  and  waste, 
men  of  Irish  blood  have  left  records  of 
achievement  that  deserve  our  gi^atitude  and 
faith.  There  is  no  department  of  American 
endeavor — profession,  trade,  or  calling — that 
Gaels  have  not  entered  and  enriched,  and 
when,  out  of  ancient  devotions  that  must 
ever  remain  dear  to  decent  hearts,  they  ask 
that  pledged  principles  of  justice  be  applied 
to  Ireland,  America  will  find  it  difficult 
indeed  to  refuse. 


Chapter  VII 
Can  Ireland  Stand  Alone? 

THIS  is  a  ^^ practical  world/ ^  and  never  so 
'^practical''  as  when  some  elementary 
proposition  of  equity  is  up  for  consideration 
and  decision.  Justice  is  rarely  denied  out 
of  any  lack  of  love  for  justice,  but  rather  by 
reason  of  the  fear  that  poor,  ^^impractical" 
Justice  will  not  be  able  to  look  after  herseK 
in  a  ^^ practical''  manner.  Better  far  to  let 
Justice  remain  in  a  prison  cell  than  that  she 
should  be  permitted  to  run  ragged  in  the 
streets,  perhaps  to  go  hungry  and  cold,  or 
else  to  risk  the  thousand  and  one  dangers 
of  unprotection.  So,  then,  on  many  sides, 
we  hear  the  question,  ^^Can  Ireland  stand 
alone?"  Is  the  island  large  enough,  are 
there  people  enough,  and  what  of  its  resources, 
finances,  and  general  ability  to  make  good  as 
a  nation  among  nations?  ^^ Practical"  folk 
are  worried  about  these  things.  England  her- 
self, highly  ''practical,"  is  concerned  no  little, 

m 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

As  to  size,  Ireland  qualifies  easily,  for  the 
island  is  twice  as  large  as  Belgium,  Holland, 
Denmark,  or  Switzerland,  and  has  an  area 
in  square  miles  almost  equal  to  that  of  Serbia, 
Portugal,  Greece,  or  Bulgaria.  As  to  popu- 
lation, Ireland  has  twice  as  many  people  as 
Norway  or  Denmark,  a  million  more  people 
than  Switzerland,  and  about  the  same  num- 
ber of  inhabitants  as  Serbia,  Bulgaria,  or 
Greece.  The  industries  of  Ireland  have  been 
crushed,  and  its  resources  are  far  from 
full  development,  yet,  notwithstanding  these 
handicaps,  the  following  figures,  showing 
trade  in  1915,  prove  rather  conclusively  that 
the  island  is  a  going  concern  in  itself  and  by 
itself: 

Greece $62,500,000 

Bulgaria 75,000,000 

Portugal 115,000,000 

Rumania 205,000,000 

Norway 210,000,000 

Denmark 325,000,000 

Sweden 375,000,000 

Ireland 862,000,000 

About  97  per  cent,  of  this  foreign  com- 
merce is  with  England,  for,  by  a  clever  system 
of  regulations  and  administrative  enact- 
ments, Ireland  has  been  shut  off  from  direct 

17G 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

contact  with  foreign  countries.  Given  re- 
stored industries  and  the  right  to  sell  in  any 
market  without  let  or  hindrance,  an  in- 
crease in  the  volume  of  business  is  reasona- 
bly to  be  expected.  The  same  system  also 
forces  the  Irish  to  buy  almost  exclusively  in 
the  English  market,  and  their  worth  as  cus- 
tomers may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that 
England's  trade  with  Ireland,  under  normal 
conditions,  is  second  only  to  England's  trade 
with  the  United  States,  amounting  to  about 
$850,000,000  annually.  Here  again  Ireland 
insists  upon  a  money  loss  by  reason  of  her 
inabiUty  to  buy  in  any  other  than  the  Eng- 
lish market. 

In  the  matter  of  finances,  Ireland  is  paying 
to-day  an  annual  tax  revenue  of  $200,000,000, 
and,  as  only  $65,000,000  is  spent  on  Irish 
government,  the  net  profit  to  England  is 
about  $135,000,000  a  year.  The  cost  of 
government  to  the  people  of  Switzerland  is 
about  $35,000,000  a  year;  in  Norway  it  is 
$36,000,000  and  in  Denmark  $27,500,000, 
and  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  each  of 
these  three  countries  maintains  an  army. 
The  Irish  insist  that  economy  and  honesty 
would  cut  their  government  cost  to  the  Swiss, 
Danish,  and  Norse  figures;  but,  even  if  this 

177 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

claim  be  put  aside,  the  surplus  $135,000,000 
that  now  goes  to  the  English  government 
would  seem  to  remove  any  fear  that  an  inde- 
pendent Ireland  would  have  to  adopt  men- 
dicancy as  its  profession.  These  answers, 
concerned  with  population,  trade,  and  finan- 
cial strength,  are  given  by  the  Ireland  of 
day,  the  Ireland  that  persists  after  seven  cen- 
turies of  oppression  and  persecution,  and  that 
she  is  able  to  make  such  a  showing  is  in  itself 
a  proof  of  sheer  indestructibility.  There  is 
another  Ireland,  however,  that  beckons  to  us 
from  histor^^ — rich  in  its  culture,  blessed  in 
its  resources,  resistless  in  its  energies  and 
initiative — needing  only  to  be  released  from 
bondage  to  rise  again  to  strength  and  power. 
In  1841  the  population  of  Ireland  was 
8,175,124;  in  1914,  the  last  census,  it  had 
shrunk  to  4,375,554.  Despite  natural  in- 
crease, a  nation  drained  of  half  its  people 
in  seventy-three  years!  If  the  Irish  case 
against  England  rested  on  this  one  count,  the 
verdict  is  assured.  The  story  of  this  tragic 
shrinkage — wars  of  extermination  in  which 
even  women  and  children  were  not  spared, 
famine,  pestilence,  evictions,  amazing  cruel- 
ties— has  been  told  in  previous  chapters; 
what  has  not  been  set  down  is  the  record  of 

178 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

rapacity,  the  dingy  chronicle  of  industrial 
greed:  how  English  rule  minted  Irish  blood 
and  sweat,  how  English  business  crushed 
Irish  business,  an  attack  by  bookkeepers  and 
lawmakers  even  more  terrible  in  its  conse- 
quences than  the  extirpations  of  Cromwell. 
As  far  back  as  1640  the  Earl  of  Strafford, 
then  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  wrote  this 
suggestion  of  policy  to  Charles  I: 

I  am  of  opinion  that  all  wisdom  advises  to  keep  this 
kingdom  as  much  subordinate  and  dependent  upon 
England  as  is  possible,  and  holding  them  from  the 
manufacture  of  wool;  and  then  enforcing  them  to 
fetch  their  clothing  from  thence,  and  to  take  their 
salt  from  the  King, — being  that  which  preserves  and 
gives  value  to  all  their  native  staple  commodities — 
how  can  they  depart  from  us  without  nakedness  and 
beggary? 

The  effects  of  this  policy  w«re  noted  by 
Lord  Dufferin  in  1867: 

From  Queen  EUzabeth's  reign  until  the  Union  the 
various  commercial  confraternities  of  Great  Britain 
never  for  a  moment  relaxed  their  relentless  grip  on 
the  trades  of  Ireland.  One  by  one,  each  of  our 
nascent  industries  was  either  strangled  in  its  birth, 
or  handed  over,  gagged  and  bound,  to  the  jealous 
custody  of  the  rival  interests  in  England,  until  at  last 

179 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

every  fountain  of  wealth  was  hermetically  sealed,  and 
even  the  traditions  of  commercial  enterprise  have 
perished  through  desuetude. 

A  modern  voice^  that  of  Sydney  Brooks,  the 
well-known  English  writer,  completes  the 
record  with  this  frank  confession: 

One  by  one  we  deliberately  strangled  her  (Ireland's) 
incipient  industries.  Woolens,  glass,  cotton,  sail- 
cloth, sugar-refining,  shipping  the  cattle,  and  provi- 
sion trade — all  went. 

Mr.  Brooks's  reference  to  shipping  may 
sound  amusing  to-day,  but  as  late  as  the  six- 
teenth century  Ireland  was  a  sea  power, 
Erin's  ships  sailing  the  seven  seas,  carrying 
the  fine  leathers  and  serges  and  silks  of  Irish 
manufacture  to  the  markets  of  Spain,  France, 
and  South  America,  and  even  winning  Med- 
iterranean trade  in  competition  with  the  far- 
famed  weavers  of  Florence.  Galway  was  a 
greater  port  than  Liverpool,  and  second  only 
to  London  in  shipping;  the  harbors  of  eight 
Irish  cities  were  thick  with  masts  flying  every 
known  flag;  and  as  Katherine  Hughes  records, 
^'20,000  foreign  fishermen  paid  customs 
duties  to  the  O'Sullivan  Beara  for  fishing  in 
the  territorial  waters  of  the  O'Sullivans;  and 

180 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

of  Spanish  boats  alone,  over  300  paid  similar 
dues  to  the  O'Driscolls.'^  English  law  after 
English  law,  however,  struck  at  the  very- 
existence  of  Irish  shipping,  Irish  merchants 
were  even  forbidden  to  use  ships  not  built  in 
England,  port  after  port  was  ringed  around 
with  prohibitions,  and  by  1600  Ireland,  the 
island,  was  about  as  much  of  a  marine  power 
as  Switzerland. 

The  cattle  trade  was  next  selected  for 
attack.  As  Catholics  were  not  permitted  to 
•own  land,  and  as  even  tenure  under  lease  was 
short  and  uncertain,  tenants  were  afraid  to 
run  the  risk  of  cultivation  and  turned  nat- 
urally to  the  raising  of  live  stock.  It  was 
not  long  until  Irish  beeves  captured  the  Eng- 
lish market,  so  by  an  Act  of  Elizabeth  Irish 
cattle  were  declared  a  '^nuisance,''  and  be- 
tween 1673  and  1670  successive  statutes  and 
orders  prohibited  absolutely  the  exportation 
of  Irish  cattle,  sheep,  and  swine,  a  blow  that 
destroyed  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 
in  values,  bringing  a  new  poverty  to  the  land. 
Barred  from  shipping  on  the  hoof,  the  Irish 
began  to  kill  at  home,  and  in  time  built  up  a 
brisk  provision  trade  with  France,  HoUand, 
the  American  Colonies,  and  particularly  with 
the  West  Indies.     This  in  its  turn  was  wiped 

181 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

out,  and  while  salted  meat  managed  to  escape 
until  1776,  a  drastic  embargo  in  that  year 
crushed  this  remnant  of  a  once  flourishing 
industry.  The  hides  of  the  beasts  seemed  to 
give  a  chance  for  profit,  but  no  sooner  did  the 
trade  show  signs  of  Hfe  than  an  English  law 
prohibited  the  exportation  of  Irish  leather. 

Blocked  in  everything  else,  the  Irish  now 
gave  their  pastures  over  to  sheep-raising 
as  the  base  of  a  woolen  industry  that  soon 
had  its  artisans  in  hundreds  of  homes  as  weU 
as  in  factories.  It  was  a  stable  industry,  as 
well  as  suitable,  and  it  looked  for  a  while  as 
if  the  Irish  were  to  be  permitted  a  certain 
measure  of  prosperity.  It  was  not  long, 
however,  before  we  find  the  House  of  Lords 
warning  the  king  that  'Hhe  growing  manufac- 
ture of  cloth  in  Ireland,  both  by  the  cheap- 
ness of  all  sorts  of  necessaries  of  life,  and 
goodness  of  materials  for  making  all  manner 
of  cloth,  makes  your  loyal  subjects  in  this 
kingdom  very  apprehensive  that  the  further 
growth  of  it  may  greatly  prejudice  the  said 
manufacture  here. ' '  English  wool  merchants 
commenced  instantly  to  agitate  for  ^^pro- 
tection,'' and  in  1698,  under  WiUiam 
III,  the  Irish  woolen  industry  was  de- 
stroyed at  a  blow  by  the  imposition  of  ex- 

182 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

orbitant  export  duties.  In  Belfast  alone 
40,000  people  were  thrown  into  idleness,  and 
about  100,000  in  the  south  of  Ireland.  As 
Lecky  comments,  sadly,  ^^So  ended  the  fair- 
est promise  Ireland  had  ever  known  of 
becoming  a  prosperous  and  happy  country.'^ 
Forth  from  the  land  fared  the  Irish  weavers, 
'^some  to  the  Protestant  States  of  Germany, 
where  they  founded  manufactories  for  the 
celebrated  Saxon  cloth — some,  who  were 
Catholics,  to  the  North  of  Spain;  and  many, 
both  Protestants  and  Catholics,  to  France, 
where  they  founded  establishments  at  Rouen 
and  other  places,  and  were  warmly  received 
by  Louis  XIV,  who  guaranteed  to  the  Protes- 
tants the  free  use  of  their  religion,  although 
he  had  previously  revoked  the  Edict  of 
Nantes.'' 

William,  doubtless  ashamed  of  his  com- 
pUcity  in  the  shameful  transaction,  decided 
to  build  up  a  linen  industry  in  Ireland,  and 
in  1698  Louis  Crommelin,  a  Huguenot  refugee, 
was  brought  to  Belfast  and  made  ^'overseer 
of  the  Royal  Linen  Manufactory  of  Ireland." 
Only  inferior  brown  and  white  linens  were 
permitted  to  be  exported,  however,  and  these 
only  to  English  colonies,  England  reserving 
the  monopoly  of  trade  in  first-class  linens. 

1S3 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

A  further  helpful  touch  was  a  high  export 
duty  on  even  these  inferior  quaUties,  for  the 
reason  that  the  Dutch  and  Germans  refused 
to  buy  English  woolens  unless  given  a  special 
privilege  over  Irish  linens.  It  was  not  until 
1743  that  the  English  Parliament  com- 
menced to  pass  helpful  laws.  But  mark  the 
discrimination  in  this  aid!  When  the  Cath- 
olics of  the  south  and  west  of  Ireland  com- 
menced to  turn  their  attention  to  linen,  the 
English  government  arbitrarily  ruled  against 
any  extension,  holding  that  the  industry 
must  be  confined  to  Ulster. 

In  1750  the  growing  Irish  trade  in  sail- 
cloth, canvas,  and  cordage  was  killed  by  the 
imposition  of  duties;  when  Ireland  built  up  a 
cotton  industry,  giving  work  to  30,000  peo- 
ple, the  English  Parliament  imposed  penal- 
ties on  any  person  using  cotton  goods  in 
Great  Britain  unless  made  in  Great  Britain; 
when  the  indomitable  Irish  turned  to  glass- 
making,  for  Ireland  has  many  of  the  neces- 
sary raw  materials,  legislation  under  George 
II  prohibited  Ireland  from  exporting  glass 
to  any  country  whatever.  In  rapid  succes- 
sion followed  the  destruction  of  such  indus- 
tries as  gunpowder,  hats,  and  ironware. 

Dublin  was  once  a  great  publishing  center, 

184 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

some  fifty  plants  turning  out  books  that  sup- 
plied the  American  Colonial  trade  almost  ex- 
clusively, as  well  as  selling  the  world  over. 
Export  duties  closed  down  these  plants,  and 
in  the  same  manner  forty  paper-mills,  in 
prosperous  operation  on  the  banks  of  the 
Liffey,  were  put  out  of  business.  The  brew- 
ing of  beer,  grown  to  large  proportions,  was 
crippled  by  prohibitive  taxation,  and  a  law 
forbidding  the  export  of  silk  manufactures 
dealt  still  another  blow  to  Irish  initiative. 
At  the  time  there  were  1,400  silk-looms  in 
Dublin  alone,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  woolens, 
the  artisans  emigrated,  leaving  none  behind 
to  teach  the  craft. 

Even  as  industries  were  crippled  or  crushed 
outright,  so  did  English  law  stand  like  the 
stone  of  Sisyphus  in  the  way  of  any  develop- 
ment of  the  natural  resources  of  Ireland. 
Under  the  sod  of  Erin  lie  great  beds  of  iron 
and  coal;  there  are  also  copper  deposits;  some 
of  its  clay  is  the  finest  in  the  world  for  pot- 
tery, chinaware,  and  tile-making,  while  Irish 
territorial  waters  teem  with  fish  of  every  kind. 
It  comes  as  a  surprise  indeed  to  learn  that  as 
far  back  as  1672  there  were  6,600  blast-fur- 
naces in  operation  in  Ireland,  giving  employ- 
ment to  25,000  workers.    Charcoal  was  the 

185 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

fuel,  but  when  the  exhaustion  of  their  forests 
turned  the  attention  of  the  Irish  to  coal  and 
peat,  the  Enghsh  prevented  and  the  industry- 
died.  Even  to-day  there  is  no  railroad  to 
the  Irish  coal-fields,  while  the  peat  reserves 
of  Ireland — 5,400,000,000  tons — are  equally 
denied  development  by  the  opposition  of 
English  mine-owners,  who  insist  upon  a 
monopoly  of  the  Irish  coal  market.  Similar 
conditions  exist  as  to  copper  and  pottery. 
With  respect  to  the  fishing  industry,  in  1846 
there  were  19,883  fishing-vessels  working  out 
of  Irish  ports,  giving  profitable  occupation  to 
93,000  men  and  boys.  By  1904  the  number 
of  fishing-boats  had  fallen  to  6,236,  this  result 
being  obtained  by  a  carefully  devised  license 
system. 

It  was  not  suflJcient,  however,  to  keep  the 
body  of  Ireland  in  poverty;  there  was  a  com- 
panion necessity  to  starve  the  mind  of  Ire- 
land in  order  that  it  might  not  dream  dreams, 
and  this  denial  of  education  to  the  Irish  was 
carried  out  with  the  same  thoroughness  that 
marked  the  destruction  of  industries  and 
commerce.  Prior  to  the  Anglo-Norman  in- 
vasion, Ireland  was  famed  for  its  learning, 
and  not  only  did  its  culture,  flowing  out  of 
the  monasteries  and  universities,  civilize  an4 

m 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

enlighten  western  Europe,  but  even  the 
youth  of  the  Continent  pilgrimaged  to  Erin 
to  sit  under  Irish  teachers.  The  invaders 
not  only  destroyed  the  schools  and  banished 
the  faculties,  murdered  the  bards  and  stilled 
the  harp,  but  they  burned  also  the  priceless 
stores  of  manuscript  until  only  the  Annals  of 
the  Four  Masters  remain  to  tell  the  story  of 
early  glory. 

It  has  been  related  already  how  Irish 
schools  were  forbidden  by  king  after  king, 
queen  after  queen,  the  iron  hand  of  prohibi- 
tion reaching  so  far  as  to  bar  Catholics  from 
sending  their  children  to  the  colleges  of  the 
Continent  under  penalty  of  death  and  con- 
fiscation of  properties.  Out  of  it  all  came 
the  '^ hedge  schools,''  the  indomitable  yet 
pathetic  effort  of  a  people  to  carry  on  the  na- 
tional tradition,  masters  and  pupils  crouch- 
ing in  fields  and  woods  and  lanes,  teaching 
and  learning,  in  hourly  fear  of  arrest  and  pun- 
ishment. As  late  as  1833,  when  the  old 
methods  were  no  longer  possible,  the  Anglican 
idea  still  imposed  itself  upon  the  Irish  edu- 
cational system.  The  children  of  Erin,  in 
returning  daily  thanks  to  God  for  the  bless- 
ings of  English  rule,  were  forced  to  include  a 
burst  of  gratitude  for  being  born  ^'a  happy 

187 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

English  child. ' '  Irish  history  was  prohibited, 
and  dunce-caps  and  corporal  punishment 
were  the  portion  of  such  abandoned  little 
wretches  as  used  a  word  of  Gaelic. 

The  higher  education,  as  well  as  the  pri- 
mary, rested  under  similar  repression.  In  the 
time  of  Henry  VIII,  before  that  king  had 
developed  the  marital  habit  and  while  he 
was  still  '^Defender  of  the  Faith,"  the  Catho- 
lics founded  Trinity  CoUege  in  Dublin,  a 
brave  attempt  to  rekindle  ancient  fires. 
Elizabeth,  however,  laid  violent  hands  on 
the  institution  and  turned  it  into  a  Protestant 
college,  with  explicit  purpose  to  ^'Anglicize" 
the  Irish.  She  also  endowed  it  richly  with 
lands  confiscated  from  Catholics,  and  to-day 
Trinity  is  the  richest  college  in  Europe,  hav- 
ing many  sources  of  income  other  than  that 
derived  from  the  200,000  acres  in  Munster 
and  Ulster  from  which  Elizabeth  drove  the 
Irish  Catholic  owners.  Yet  it  was  not  until 
1793  that  Catholics  were  even  admitted  to 
Trinity.  Always  a  source  of  bitterness,  the 
demand  for  an  Irish  university  became  acute 
as  far  back  as  1873,  and  British  ministries, 
one  after  the  other,  promised  and  repudiated, 
until  finally  Mr.  Balfour,  in  1889,  said  that 
the  question  could  be  settled  on  these  condi- 

188 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

tions:  (1)  That  Ireland  should  be  content 
with  a  college  instead  of  a  university;  (2) 
that  there  should  be  no  endowment  by  pub- 
lic money  of  the  teaching  of  their  religious 
creed;  and  (3)  that  there  should  be  a  con- 
science clause,  to  protect  any  non-Catholic 
student  from  being  compelled  to  attend 
religious  services.  CathoUcs  of  Ireland — 
laity  and  bishops — accepted  these  three  con- 
ditions, but  Mr.  Balfour  then  decided  that  it 
was  impossible  to  legislate  upon  the  ques- 
tion at  all  until  public  opinion  in  England, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland  was  practically  unani- 
mous upon  the  subject.  Lord  Bryce,  always 
a  champion  of  justice  to  Ireland,  was  the 
next  to  enter  upon  an  agreement,  but  when 
he  came  to  the  United  States  as  ambassador 
his  pledges  were  repudiated  by  those  who 
succeeded  him.  Not  until  1908  did  Ireland 
finally  win  the  privilege  of  a  national  uni- 
versity, and  then  so  hedged  around  with 
restrictions  as  to  be  less  than  free  in  its  de- 
velopment. 

Reduced  from  the  status  of  owTiers  to  ten- 
ants, bound  in  body  and  starved  in  mind, 
living  lives  ordered  by  the  martial  law  of  an 
army  of  occupation,  the  condition  of  the 
Irish  might  have  weU  induced  pity  and  for- 

14  189 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

bearance,  but  the  British  program  refused 
to  alter  its  logical  and  inexorable  progress. 
There  were  still  sources  of  profit  in  the  in- 
dividual industry  of  the  Irish,  and  by- 
advanced  and  approved  methods  of  tax- 
ation English  law  proceeded  to  confiscate 
these  earnings.  One  of  the  early  customs, 
highly  favored  by  most  kings,  was  the  grant- 
ing of  pensions  out  of  the  Irish  establish- 
ment; in  plain  words,  the  Irish  people  were 
compelled  to  pay  annual  sums  to  such  Eng- 
lish and  foreign  favorites  as  the  English 
crown  chose  to  designate.  By  way  of  illus- 
tration, these  names  and  amounts  are  taken 
from  the  Irish  records: 

The  Duchess  of  Kendal,  mistress  of  George 
I,  $15,000  a  year;  the  Countess  of  Yarmouth, 
$20,000  a  year;  the  Princess  of  Hesse,  $25,- 
000  a  year,  the  Queen  Dowager  of  Prussia, 
$4,000  a  year;  Lady  Betty  Walgrave,  $4,000 
a  year;  M.  de  Verios,  the  Sardinian  ambas- 
sador who  negotiated  peace  with  France, 
$5,000  a  year;  Lady  Kilmansegg,  $6,250  a 
year;  the  Countess  of  Belmont,  $7,500  a 
year;  Frederick,  Duke  of  Brunswick,  $33,500 
a  year;  Lord  Bathurst,  $10,000  a  year;  the 
Duke  of  Gloucester,  $15,000  a  year;  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  $15,000  a  year;  Prin- 

190 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

cess  Amelia,  $5,000  a  year;  Princess  Augusta, 
$25,000  a  year;  Caroline  Matilda,  Queen  of 
Denmark  (banished  for  adultery),  $15,000  a 
year. 

Death  rarely  gave  the  burdened  Irish  any 
reUef,  for  the  pension  was  merely  transferred 
to  some  other  favorite  and  became  perma- 
nent. Within  the  official  circle,  a  pension 
attached  to  an  office  and  paid  concurrently 
with  the  salary  was  sometimes  retained  on 
the  pensioner's  promotion  to  a  better  post, 
though  he  either  could  not  or  would  not  dis- 
charge the  duties  of  the  pensioned  office.  As 
exposed  by  Swift  in  his  Drapier  Letters, 
many  of  the  higher  offices  in  Church,  state, 
and  judiciary  were  given,  with  their  salaries, 
to  Englishmen  who  in  some  cases  never  came 
to  Ireland,  and  never  made,  or  pretended  to 
make,  any  return  whatever  for  the  salaries. 

In  spite  of  these  practices,  the  Irish 
national  debt  was  less  than  $15,000,000 
prior  to  the  Act  of  Union.  In  1801,  how- 
ever, after  one  year's  operation  of  the 
measure  that  was  to  work  benefits  and 
blessings,  Ireland  owed  $142,225,670,  de- 
cidedly an  increase  that  may  be  called 
substantial.  Pitt  had  spent  $10,000,000  in 
bribing  through  the  Act  of  Union,  and  this 

191 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

amount  was  calmly  saddled  upon  the  Irish. 
There  was  also  the  sum  of  $15,000,000 
that  Pitt  casually  borrowed  on  Ireland^s 
credit,  and,  in  addition,  the  Irish  were 
loaded  with  $100,000,000,  England's  esti- 
mate of  what  it  cost  to  suppress  the  rebel- 
lion of  1798.  This,  however,  does  not  tell 
the  full  story  by  any  means.  It  was  ex- 
plicitly stated  at  the  time  of  union  that 
'^In  respect  to  past  expenses,  Ireland  was 
to  have  no  concern  whatever  with  the  debt 
of  Great  Britain,^'  but  in  1817  the  two 
exchequers  were  amalgamated,  and  the  al- 
ready burdened  Irish  were  compelled  to 
assume  their  share  of  the  purely  British 
load.  The  Irish  debt  leaped  instantly  to 
$605,000,000. 

Another  agreement  in  the  Act  of  Union  was 
that  '^future  expenses''  would  be  borne  on 
a  ^^  strict  measure  of  relative  ability,"  the 
proportion  fixed  upon  at  the  time  being  one 
to  seven  and  a  half.  England's  popula- 
tion rose,  Ireland's  lessened,  but  there  was 
no  readjustment,  and  a  Gladstone  com- 
mission reported  in  1894  that  Ireland  was 
even  then  paying  $13,750,000  more  than 
her  share,  and  that  since  the  Act  of  Union 
in   1880  Ireland  had  been  overcharged  to 

192 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

the  amount  of  $2,000,000,000.  What  made 
for  bitterness,  as  well  as  privation,  was  the 
form  of  taxation.  In  England  the  indirect 
taxation  never  exceeded  50  per  cent,  of  the 
gross  sinii  to  be  levied,  and  frequently  went 
as  low  as  23  per  cent.,  but  in  Ireland  75 
per  cent,  of  revenue  was  raised  by  taxes  on 
food  and  the  necessities  of  life. 

As  it  has  been,  so  it  is  to-day.  The  Earl 
of  Dunraven,  in  a  spirited  pamphlet,  has 
described  the  Irish  system  of  government 
as  ^^ a  grotesque  anachronism  .  .  .  divided  up 
between  numerous  departments,  over  many 
of  which,  some  the  most  important,  the 
Irish  government  has  no  effective  control. 
These  departments  overlap  and  the  result  is 
confusion  and  extravagance.  Scotland  and 
Ireland  have  approximately  the  same  popu- 
lation, yet  Ireland  pays  about  $1,000,'000 
more  than  Scotland  for  her  judicial  system; 
$5,000,000  more  for  her  pohce;  and  $320,000 
more  for  her  local  government.  The  Irish 
police  entail  an  outlay  of  over  $7,500,000 
annually;  in  other  words,  the  cost  of  the 
pohce  for  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in 
arms  in  Ireland  works  out  an  average  of 
$1.66  per  head.     The  picture  of  a  charge  of 

this  amount  for  keeping  in  order  an  infant 

103 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

in  armS;  to  state  the  case  in  its  most  absurd 
light,  is  too  ridiculous  to  need  statement  in 
further  detail,  when  it  is  borne  in  mind 
that  crime  in  Ireland  is  actually  less  than 
in  Scotland/^ 

He  might  have  added  that  the  records 
prove  that  Ireland  was  never  so  peaceful 
or  law-abiding  as  during  the  Boer  War, 
when  England's  necessities  forced  the  with- 
drawal of  30,000  soldiers  and  diverted  Eng- 
lish energies  for  a  while  from  the  business  of 
'^keeping  the  Irish  in  order/'  He  .could 
also  have  commented  with  profit  upon  the 
fact  that  the  harassment  of  the  people  by 
their  ^^ armed  guards"  is  as  much  a  cause 
of  protest  as  the  appalling  cost.  There 
have  been  prosecutions  for  whistUng  ^^  Har- 
vey Duff,''  for  an  ^^ aggressive  wink,"  and 
for  '^a  humbugging  sort  of  smile,"  and  there 
is  record  of  the  arrest  of  Margaret  Moran 
and  John  Moran,  evicted  tenants,  for  ^^  blow- 
ing their  noses  in  a  contemptuous  manner." 
In  any  other  country  but  Ireland  the  absurd 
charge  would  have  been  scouted  out  of 
court,  but  a  trial  resulted  in  a  two  months' 
prison  sentence  for  the  Morans.  The  main- 
tenance of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary, 
with   its   14,000  men,   and   the  additional 

J  04 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

expense  of  an  ''army  of  occupation/^  at 
present  numbering  150,000  soldiers,  are  mere- 
ly items  in  the  Irish  account. 

In  every  detail  of  the  Irish  establishment 
one  finds  royal  carelessness  in  the  English 
expenditure  of  Irish  money.  The  Lord- 
Lieutenant,  for  instance,  receives  a  salary 
of  $100,000  a  year,  an  additional  $25,000 
for  his  ''outfit,'^  and  an  allowance  of  $225,- 
000  for  his  ''household.'^  The  Chief  Sec- 
retary enjoys  remuneration  above  that  given 
to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  petty 
judges  in  Ireland  are  paid  more  than  the 
justices  of  our  Supreme  Court,  and  all 
through  the  list  of  100,000  office-holders 
necessary  to  the  government  of  Ireland  the 
same  lordly  ideas  prevail  in  the  matter  of 
compensation.  Even  in  the  time  of  Glad- 
stone, Sir  Robert  Hamilton,  that  great 
English  administrator,  offered  to  reduce 
Irish  governmental  expenses  by  $10,000,000 
a  year  without  loss  of  efficiency,  an  offer, 
needless  to  say,  that  was  not  accepted. 

The  drains  that  have  been  cited  are  direct, 
proceeding  from  ''taxation  without  repre- 
sentation," the  very  cause  that  impelled  the 
revolt  of  the  American  Colonies.  There  are 
others,  not  so  obvious  but  just  as  weakening, 

195 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

among  them  being  the  smn  of  $65;000;000 
that  goes  annually  to  England  from  Ireland 
in  the  shape  of  rents,  interest,  salaries,  law 
costs,  and  scores  of  other  forms,  the  large 
portion  of  which  would  remain  in  Irish 
hands  under  a  fairer  scheme  of  government. 
These,  then,  are  presented  as  answers  to 
the  question,  ''Can  Ireland  stand  alone?" 
They  constitute  an  absolute  affirmation. 
Let  England  repay  the  moneys  illegally 
extorted  by  overtaxation  since  the  Act  of 
Union  in  1800  and  Ireland  cannot  only 
assume  an  erect  posture  at  once,  but  will  be 
able  to  maintain  it  without  the  aid  of  crutches. 
A  round  two  biUions  is  the  sum.  Even  if 
this  justice  be  withheld,  there  is  stiU  no 
ground  for  any  fear  of  Irish  destitution. 
Reductions  in  the  cost  of  government,  the 
retention  of  the  $135,000,000  that  now  goes 
to  the  English  treasury,  the  holding  in  Ire- 
land of  the  $65,000,000  that  now  pours  into 
English  hands,  and  the  stopping  of  various 
other  drains  would  give  the  country  a  very 
satisfactory  solvency  at  the  outset.  There 
is  to  be  considered  also  the  growth  of  indus- 
tries, the  development  of  trade  relations,  the 
use  of  natural  resources,  and  the  reclamation 
pf  some  5,000,000  Irish  acres  only  waiting 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

modern  methods  to  be  made  profitable.  It 
is  a  showing  that  seems  to  do  away  with  the 
need  of  credit,  but  if  credit  should  be  found 
necessary,  does  any  one  doubt  that  an  issue 
of  Irish  bonds  would  not  find  ready  sale 
among  those  millions  of  Irish  blood  who  have 
won  to  prosperity  in  the  United  States? 

Our  study  of  the  ^' Irish  question '^  may 
well  rest  with  this  challenge.  All  is  not  said 
that  might  be  said,  but  fundamental  facts 
and  essential  figures  have  been  made  to 
stand  clear,  and  volumes  would  not  add  to 
the  story  save  in  detail.  As  to  verdict  there 
can  be  but  one  voice.  At  every  point  in  the 
chronicle  of  seven  centuries  the  conten- 
tions of  Ireland  are  sustained  by  records  as 
indisputable  as  tragic;  there  is  also  the  tes- 
timony borne  by  British  statesmen  urgent 
to  erase  the  '*  Irish  blot^^;  the  evidence 
adduced  by  British  historians  too  honest  to 
color  or  extenuate.  English  '^ conquest"  is 
seen  to  be  a  thing  that  has  ravaged  and 
destroyed,  depopulated  and  impoverished, 
decimated  and  exiled;  English  rule  stands 
revealed  as  cruel  and  predatory,  false  and 
unscrupulous,  no  matter  what  the  king  or 
what  the  queen;  always  killing,  banishing,  or 
extirpating,    enforcing,  ignorance^    crushing 

m 


HIGH  LIGHTS  OF  IRISH  HISTORY 

industry,  inducing  famine;  always  filching, 
bleeding,  squeezing,  extorting,  until  the  tax- 
gatherer's  way  is  as  black  with  the  anathema 
of  despair  as  in  the  days  when  Joseph  and 
Mary  cried  out  against  the  rapacities  of 
Rome. 

.  Above  aU,  more  convincing  than  aU,  it  is 
seen  that  England  holds  title  in  Ireland  only 
by  invasion  and  armed  occupation,  and  that 
the  Irish  have  never  recognized  conquest, 
never  yielded  the  voluntary  submission  with- 
out which  the  sovereign  independence  of  a 
nation  does  not  and  cannot  pass.  Crushed 
time  and  again  by  sheer  weight  of  numbers, 
borne  to  the  very  edge  of  extermination  in 
war  after  war,  hunted  like  wild  beasts  from 
bog  to  glen,  scourged  by  pestilence  and 
famine,  subjected  to  every  known  cruelty  of 
persecution,  perishing  by  thousands  on  win- 
try mountain-sides,  dying  with  starved  lips 
stained  by  the  green  of  grass  and  nettles, 
the  soul  of  Ireland  has  never  surrendered, 
the  heart  of  Ireland  has  never  ceased  to 
beat  a  battle-cry  of  rebellion. 

Stripped  of  lies,  prejudices,  and  pretense, 
the  so-called  ^^ Irish  question"  shines  forth 
as  one  of  the  world^s  most  tremendous  sim- 
plicities.   Freedom  is  its  answer  and  its  end, 

198 


CAN  IRELAND  STAND  ALONE? 

To-day,  no  less  than  in  every  wi^etched, 
blood-stained  day  for  seven  long,  terrible 
centuries,  Ireland  wants  to  be  free.  Ajid 
when  the  miracle  of  spring  has  not  yet  thrown 
a  mantle  of  green  over  the  graves  of  those 
thousands  who  died  but  yesterday  in  the 
name  of  liberty;  when  the  world,  like  som^e 
great  shell  of  the  sea,  stiU  echoes  to  the 
inspiring  battle-cries  with  which  England, 
France,  and  America  rallied  their  youth  to 
the  defense  of  ^Sveak  peoples'^  and  the 
'^rights  of  small  nations'^;  when  the  heart 
of  humanity  was  never  so  sick  of  blood  and 
injustice,  what  excuse  can  be  offered,  what 
excuse  received,  for  continuing  the  chains 
that  keep  Ireland  in  the  pit  while  other 
peoples  climb  from  darkness  to  the  light? 


THE    END 


BOSTON  COLLEGE 


3  9031   01628771 


DATE  DUE 

m^ 

1 1  \m 

GAYLORD 

f>mNTCOINU.S.A. 

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